Wireless Networking at Bargain-Basement Prices
Of course, home and SOHO (small office/home office) networking is nothing new to the white-box builder. What's new, however, is the explosive growth of relatively easy-to-use router products, such as those from Netgear.
While these networking products are easy to use, they are not all that easy to install. In fact, I have found that setup of these devices is usually beyond the scope of the average SOHO end user. But for the experienced -- even semi-experienced -- box builder, the simple plug-and-play features of these devices make for a profitable service offering. The end result:
- An easy setup and install with no headaches for the box builder.
- An end user who is thrilled because they now have a cutting-edge network.
- A lucrative business opportunity for the white-box builder.
A great way to lower the prices for your clients is to use older PCs and notebooks. New notebooks at CompUSA and BestBuy are pricy, starting at about $900 and going as high as $2,800. Notebooks play a large part in the wireless arena of networking, since they offer the convenience of portability. If you can get a wireless Internet signal to a notebook, theoretically you can use that notebook anywhere in the home or office that the signal reaches. Even desktop computers add up, despite recent price cuts, with new units at about $500. I have found that previously owned PCs and notebooks can be purchased on eBay for as little as $125. While these little gems cannot be at all considered to be fully-functional computers -- some date back as far as 1995 -- they make EXCELLENT network nodes for students, word processing types, and plain-jane Internet browsing PCs. They also support some of the versions of Windows at performance level that I found surprising. More on that as we get into the details of this recipe.
Recipe Ingredients
Here's what you'll need to get started. Please note: Since this recipe covers a large range of hardware, it's not expected that you will have all of the ingredients in this recipe. So use this list as a guideline, not a requirement:
- Notebook computer with PCMCIA slots
- Desktop computer
- 802.11 wireless adapter
- 108 MB wireless adapter
- Ethernet adapter
- Windows 98
- Windows XP
Let's take a look at each of these ingredients separately.
Ethernet
I only wish to touch on Ethernet briefly, since it's been the most prevalent network hardware platform for the last 15 years. Ethernet probably accounts for 98% of all LAN hardware in the world. As a historical note, Ethernet became the juggernaut of local area networking back when IBM shocked the world by seriously curtailing the manufacture of its own proprietary platform, called "token ring," and started manufacturing and pushing Ethernet-ready computers. For any old time IBMers out there, you know that the one thing IBM hates to do is use generic technology in lieu of its own stuff.
Ethernet is a hard-wire networking technology that uses RJ45 category 5 cables (CAT5) to transmit data at either 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps. It's stable, reliable, and will work on almost any PC or notebook. An older desktop or notebook computer will run great on an Ethernet network and offer plenty of Internet Explorer and e-mailing horsepower.
The one drawback to Ethernet is the wiring itself, which can get expensive. You and your clients may shudder at the cost of running hardwires across multiple floors and through walls.
802.11 Wireless
This wireless technology has been around for a while, and it works fairly well. Netgear makes a variety of 802.11 products such as their MA401 PCMCIA adapter for notebooks and laptops. The associated 802.11 router from Netgear is the MR814.
After working with these two products, I discovered two benefits:
I.) Installation is simple. The MA401 PCMCIA card installs to a notebook much in the same fashion as any plug-and-play adapter. As long as you have the CD that comes with the MA401, you're good to go. Similarly, the MR814 router is also easy to install:
- Connect the routed port -- it's separate from the other five hub ports that are ganged together -- to the cable or DSL modem. Connect the PC to one of the five hub ports.
- Open a browser, and go to http://192.168.0.1. (This is a private IP address between the router and the PC. It's not visible from the Internet.) You will see the screen shot below:
- Type in username: admin and password: password
- You will then be directed to the Main Menu of the MR814 router, as shown below:
II.) Performance of the wireless LAN capabilities is fair to good. I found that the relative range of the signal to be about two average-sized rooms, assuming just one wall to penetrate. Beyond that, however, the signal fell to an unusable level. With a strong signal level, my browsing speed was very good, almost equal to that of my base-station PC, which is on a hard-wired Ethernet.
The next screen shot shows what you will see when you have a good signal between the MA401 and the MR814. To access this screen, double-click on the green PC icon in the startup tray of Windows, located in the lower right-hand corner of your Windows screen. If this PC icon is yellow or red, it means the signal is too weak to reach the router. To fix this, move the laptop closer to the router base station, so that you see a green icon, as shown in this screen shot:
108 MB Wireless
This technology is the latest and greatest for residential and SOHO PC wireless networking. 108 MB wireless offers a signal that covers a much larger area that its 802.11 wireless counterpart. I was able to test some of the gear that's built on the 108 MB wireless platform. The equipment I used was the Netgear WG5111T PCI notebook adapter and the Netgear WGT624 wireless router. Here is what I found:
- For the most part, the setup and installation of each 108 MB device was almost identical to that of the 802.11 devices I list earlier in this recipe.
- The performance levels and coverage area of the wireless signal were EXCELLENT, to say the least. Compared with 802.11 performance -- which I found limited at best %96 108 MB could receive an Internet signal just about anywhere either inside or outside a house. Considering the low price of 108 MB gear, I would guess that 802.11 devices will be just about gone from the shelves of BestBuy and CompUSA by year's end. Of course, 108 MB has about a $20 premium per device over 802.11, so a few products may remain for the bargain-basement market.
Windows 98
While Win98 has long been panned as the "dog" of the Windows OS, I disagree. For the price-conscious consumer, Win98 is a great choice, and it works just fine. On eBay, you can pick up a CD and license for about $10. The real hidden value of Win98 -- and the reason it's included in this wireless recipe -- is that 98 is the only Windows OS that serves as a "bridge" between the older notebook systems (a la Pentium 2) while still supporting the newest wireless adapters.
Here's the story behind that:
- I installed a fresh copy of Win98 on a Gateway 2000 laptop, circa 1996, with a Pentium II CPU and a paltry 64 MB of RAM. The OS software and applications ran blazingly fast. By the way, on eBay, a similar laptop can be had for around $125 -- a great value, in my opinion.
- The PCMCIA drivers supported the 802.11 wireless adapter, but not the 108 MB adapter. Not to worry. I was informed by Netgear that the laptop was too old. A somewhat newer laptop would have no problem. For example, a Pentium III, which can be found on eBay for about $200.
Windows XP
WinXP is currently considered Microsoft's state-of-the-art OS, and it truly lives up to that accolade. Feature-rich, fast, and reliable, XP takes advantage of the latest in software technology and 64-bit processing power. Today's newest laptops usually boast a 3.0 GHz Pentium processor -- and a large price tag, somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,400 to $2,800.
For the price-conscious box-builder, I suggest you step back to a 1.0 GHz or 1.2 GHz laptop, most likely built in 2002 or 2003. I have seen these laptops on the Computer Shopping Network for as little as $500. A CPU of that magnitude will handle most cutting-edge applications built for the faster processors quite well. Examples include video broadcasting and high-speed autocad drawing. Chances are that they will also be configured with USB II or Firewire, which is a huge benefit for add-on peripheral devices. For wireless networking, these laptops works like a charm. After all, the network is being deployed on an almost-new computer.
DAVID KARY is the founder and CEO of Rippt Inc. and a frequent contributor to TechBuilder.org.
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