Until recently, home networking has been the domain of nerds, and rich ones at that. Not only did a home network require at least two (expensive) PCs, but also the other relevant equipment which itself wasn't exactly as cheap as chips (to quote another "Duke").

Well, that day has arrived, and as the resident nerd it's up to me to sort out the whole sorry mess. As I usually find, the problem to be solved wasn't exactly straightforward. Chez Duke has two PCs, in two separate rooms, on two different floors. The PC at the very top of the house is the one used most often, but it's the second PC, on the floor below, which is right beside the phone point. As you can imagine, the long phone extension cable running down the stairs created all sorts of havoc, especially when checking emails or chatting on instant messaging and someone kicked the lead out of the phone socket or demanded some phone time. Although my solution was a lot more expensive, physically wiring the PCs together was too huge an undertaking, especially since the wiring would be semi-permanent.

Due to restrictions with wiring and the like, I had to resort to the more expensive wireless technology, and my research around the internet led me to the Netgear 54Mbps Wireless ADSL Firewall Router (with 4 port switch). Phew, what a mouthful, eh? This set up would mean that the PC beside the phone point would be physically connected to the router whilst the PC at the top of the house would be connected wirelessly which solves all my problems!

I suppose the best place to start is the ADSL part. You probably know ADSL better as Broadband. Broadband is a fast internet connection (depending on the speed of the most common broadband connections it can be between 4 and 10 times faster than your ordinary modem connection). ADSL is generally associated with BT telephone lines. If you are running your phone line/broadband connection through a cable company such as NTL, you'll need slightly different equipment.

As an aside: Wireless network technology may also be described as 802.11a, 802.11b or 802.11g, and you shouldn't panic if you see these complicated looking numbers. The 'g' suffix at the end of the numbers indicates that the speed of the connection is 54 Mbps, transmitted at 2.4GHz whereas the 802.11 indicates the protocol (or interface) used to transmit and receive the data. 'a' and 'b' suffixes mean that the same interface is used, but at different speeds and frequencies. It's more common to see 802.11b and 802.11g these days. 802.11b and 802.11g are compatible as they transmit information at the same frequency, although 'g' is approximately 5 times faster than 'b'.

Another part of this all-in-one package is the router. A router is typically described as something which enables two different networks to talk to each other. The router sits between these two networks and generally gives information the best path to take to get to the required destination.

Essentially then, the Netgear 54Mbps Wireless ADSL Firewall Router provides you with a broadband modem and hardware firewall base unit whilst allowing you to network your computers together without the inconvenience of wires, although that option is also open to you.

The instructions are very clear and give precise details on exactly what you will need, although it's worth reading these before your ADSL connection is switched on in case you need extra equipment. Everything you need to connect to your broadband is contained within the box with two exceptions. If you wish to connect wirelessly, then you will need to purchase a separate wireless network card/device (typically priced somewhere between £30 and £50) and you may have to invest in extra micro filters (apart from the one you use to connect the router to the phone line, you'll need extra ones for each phone you have connected to an extension in your house at around £5 each.) It's advisable to have these at hand before you install the hardware as voice communications through the telephone lines can interrupt your broadband connection (and the microfilters keep the voice and broadband signals separate).

The base unit itself is roughly just smaller than the size of an A4 sheet of paper in terms of desk footprint and roughly an inch and a half high (not including aerial), although there are screw holes on the bottom/back for wall mounting if desk space is limited. It's very plain looking with a few status lights across the front and the power socket and network ports along the back. The status lights, which indicate power and network activity through the 4 physical ports, the wireless connection and the broadband connection, are clear and easy to see.

It's important if you are using a wireless connection to secure your connection. I found the manual to be woefully unhelpful at this stage, but found an excellent piece of (general) advice at http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/80211bsecurity1.html. (as an aside, there is plenty of great help on a large range of computing topics at this site and is well worth a look!)

Browsing speed, download speeds etc. were all excellent indicating that I had properly connected the first PC to the router/firewall via the network cable, and that I could turn my attention to the second PC which was to be connected wirelessly.

Setting up the network aspect of the system was also easy enough, by running Windows XP's Networking wizard on both PCs. As the router/firewall had already done a lot of the work previously, it was a simple matter of typing in a few names and letting it be. I can now swap documents between the PCs and play games, too.

Now everyone in the household is happy. The phone line is again free and both computers can simultaneously connect to the internet at speeds better than our previous dial-up connection could provide. If there ever comes a time when I need to add more computers to the network, then this isn't a problem as this piece of equipment can connect up to 253 computers to the internet connection (4 via a cable connection and the rest wirelessly).

Total cost of this system:
Netgear 54Mbps Wireless ADSL Firewall Router (with 4 port 10/100 Mbps switch): £122.42
Netgear WG311 54Mbps Wireless PCI adapter: £51.69
Pipex 512 Xtreme Solo Broadband connection: £23 per month (inc. VAT)