08/24/2002

At my moment of triumph, I grabbed my laptop computer and ran upstairs to show my wife.

My portable computer wasn't tethered to a phone jack or to a cable modem. Yet as I carried it around the house, it was downloading a file from the Web.

I had just installed a wireless home network, connecting our family's four PCs to each other and to the Internet.

While my wife didn't share my enthusiasm ("Yeah, so?"), she did appreciate a key benefit of the new network: all our computers could share the high-speed Internet connection from the cable company.

That meant she could use her PC to surf the Web and send e-mail even while I used mine. And she suddenly had a fast Internet connection to replace a pokey America Online dial-up account.

Home networks are becoming popular as more and more families buy second and third PCs, and want them all to have Internet access.

Some 29 percent of U.S. households now have more than one computer, according to Parks Associates, a Dallas-based technology research firm. Almost a third of those already multi-PC homes have linked their machines together, according to Parks.

The top reason people set up home networks is to share Internet access, said Michael Greeson, senior analyst at Parks.

But linking your computers together has other benefits. They can share files and devices like printers.

And home networks can provide added security. Many networking products automatically establish a firewall between your computers and the Internet, making it more difficult for a hacker to break in.

Home networks can be fast. Many wireless networks can send data back and forth at 10 megabits per second. That's more than enough speed to play an MP3 music file stored on another PC. And it's usually faster than a cable modem can deliver Web pages.

The proliferation of home networks has been spawned by falling prices and because the industry has adopted a standard way of hooking computers together without wires called "Wi-Fi." Geeks like to call it 802.11b, the technical name for the standard. Since the devices all talk to each other in a standard fashion, you can mix and match products from different manufacturers.

Cox Communications has picked up on the increasing interest in home networking. This week, it began offering a service in which the company will install a network in your home, allowing your computers to share a cable modem connection, as well as files, and a printer.

The key piece of equipment in most home networks is sometimes called a "residential gateway," a cigar box-shaped unit with blinking lights and jacks on the back. They can cost as little as $40.

This device is installed between your cable (or DSL) modem, and your computer. You can then plug cables between the box and other PCs, which connect them together. Those PCs will need an "Ethernet" card installed, which can be purchased for as little as $10. (The computer connected to your cable or DSL modem probably already has one, and many new PCs now ship with them.)

You can also go wireless, eliminating the need to drill holes through walls to connect PCs in other rooms. A wireless gateway is more expensive, costing about $80 to $100. The remote computers also need a wireless adapter (about $60), which can be installed inside or plugged into a USB port. The radio signals that link the computers can travel several hundred feet, between floors and sometimes into the back yard. Depending on the operating system, you may also need to install some software.

Cox's home networking service is pricey.

The basic charges are $350 for a wireless network, and $300 for a wire-based network. For either option, Cox will provide the necessary equipment to connect two PCs together and get everything set up. Additional PCs are $49 each for wired connections, or $99 for wireless connections.

You also are required to pay a $10-a-month maintenance fee for at least one year. That covers any trouble you have on a network of up to four computers. Cox will dispatch a technician to fix it within 24 hours, said John Wolfe, vice president of government and public affairs for Cox.

You can save a lot of money by installing it yourself. And you don't have to pay Cox any additional fees to share your Internet connection throughout your house. Cox uses D-Link and Linksys networking equipment, which is available at computer stores, such as Best Buy, Circuit City and CompUSA.

I set up a mixed wireless and wire-based network that links four computers. Two computers -- a laptop and a desktop PC -- are connected wirelessly, and two others are connected through wires. The printer is plugged in as well, so any of the computers can use it. Total cost: about $235.

Setting it up was pretty simple. The most complicated part was establishing a secret key for wireless access to make sure that neighbors or hackers driving by couldn't tap into our network.

I did run into some trouble getting a D-Link wireless PC card working on my laptop. After spending hours on the phone with a technical support representative and trying new drivers from the company's Web site, the manufacturer sent me another card. That one had the same trouble. So I ordered a different brand and am stuck with a $60 card.

That's where Cox's service plan would have come in handy. But doing it myself was still less expensive.