Should I use Surge Protection for my Home Appliances?

The question whether or not to protect your home appliances with surge protection devices is a personal one, but it is something you should take seriously, especially if you use sensitive or expensive equipment. The cost of basic surge protection or surge suppression is minimal compared to the price of replacing equipment such as audio or video equipment.

Surge suppression really should be used for all electronic devices such as Computer Monitors, Televisions, Printers and DSL equipment. In fact any equipment that is semi-conductor based. The components in some of these devices are very susceptible to sudden changes in voltage, in particular increases in voltage.

So how does surge protection work?

A surge protector is normally placed in the AC power line between the wall outlet and the device it is intended to protect. Some surge protection devices can also be used to protect telephone equipment by being placed in the telephone line. They are designed to protect against what are known as voltage spikes or transients in an electrical circuit that can be caused by many different actions, some of which include:

• Circuit Breakers tripping
• Short Circuits as a result of poor maintenance of wiring or corrosion.
• Power Outages
• Fluctuations in power caused by the power generating company
• Lightening Strikes

Surge suppression devices will generally protect against most of these eventualities, but lightning strikes can produce huge surges in voltage in the order of thousands of volts. Even with surge protection, if there is the possibility of lightning then the equipment should be totally isolated from the mains supply, including the surge protection device. It is worth noting that the lightning does not have to directly strike the power transmission lines in order affect the consumer supply. Other than lightning, surges in peak voltage are usually in the magnitude of several hundred volts and most commercially available protection devices will be designed to protect against power transients in that order.  

A device designed to protect against voltage spikes will have a rated clamping voltage, sometimes know as the let-through voltage. This is the voltage level at which the device will divert the unwanted voltage away from the line. The clamping voltage should be a little more than the required voltage for the devices being protected. Most surge suppression devices will have a clamping voltage somewhere in the region of 330 – 500 Volts, with 330 Volts being very common.

Another parameter to consider when purchasing voltage spike protection equipment is the protectors Joules rating, where a Joule is a unit of energy. The rating on surge protection devices will define just how much energy can be absorbed when a voltage transient occurs, without the device failing.  A properly designed protection device should only absorb a certain amount of energy before failing because by absorbing energy, that energy is dissipated elsewhere in the system. A surge protection device should be designed to fail at a sensible rating, thus dissipating the energy to ground and away from the sensitive equipment. The higher the rating, the better the protection and typical ratings for surge suppression devices designed for the home should have ratings in the order of 200-600 Joules.

The time it takes for the protection device to respond to the increase in voltage is known as the response time. If the response time is too long then the damage may already be done, so look for devices with response times of around 1 nanosecond, which should ensure adequate protection.

Finally, good surge protectors will have an indicator light to give you a visual representation that the device is providing full protection. Most devices will ‘burn out’ after a number of voltage spikes, particularly if those spikes are of a high magnitude because the Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV) component has a finite life. The majority of multi-socket surge strips will still function as a basic power strip without the surge protection after the MOV has failed, but without the indicator light, you would have no way of knowing.

If you currently have no surge protection or are contemplating buying new computer or video equipment then it would be wise to invest in a relatively inexpensive surge suppression device to protect your investment. 

This article on Surge Suppression was written by David Christie, MD at NSTUK Ltd,  Website http://www.techyshack.co.uk 

Buy Power Strips with Surge Protection

If you currently use power adapters  or power plugs with 2 or 3 outlets, then you should consider replacing them with power strips, preferably with built in surge protection features. Some of these adapters do have a fuse, but this is the only protection you will have from a short circuit, electricity supplier power surge or a lightening strike. Too many people overload these adapters by either plugging in too many high power rated devices such as heaters, or even by plugging in additional adapters. They are easily pulled out of the wall socket if someone trips over a cable or cables are too tight. For your own safety, it is time to think of replacing them with relatively inexpensive power strips, particularly one with surge protection features.

Power strips provide a block of electrical sockets attached to a cable with a mains plug and you can choose the length of mains cable, typically between 1 and 5 metres. Many of these power strips have a built-in circuit breaker to protect against excess current, and of course the mains plug will be fused. Within Europe any plug or socket that does not have the addition of surge protection will not be CE marked, so look for this mark when purchasing.

Surge protection devices are sometimes referred to as surge suppression devices and our designed to protect against sudden increases in voltage known as voltage spikes, which can occur on your mains electricity supply. Any excess voltage detected is dealt with by normally shorting the unwanted voltage to ground. Some surge protection devices will also provide additional protection for some data communications devices as well as general appliances. There are 3 main features to look for when determining a good surge suppression device, and they are the Joules Rating, Clamping Voltage and Response Times.

A Joule is a unit of energy and a Joules rating will define how much energy can be absorbed when a power surge or voltage spike occurs. Surge protectors should have joules ratings of over 200 Joules, with good surge protection devices having ratings in excess of 1000 Joules.  Good surge suppression devices will absorb a certain amount of energy and divert the remainder to ground. Most devices employ a MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor), which is normally comprised of metal oxide that connects the power to ground by means of two semiconductors with variable resistance. Resistance is high when the voltage is low and low when the voltage is high, allowing the additional current to flow to ground. The resistance will return to a high level once the power surge is over, allowing current to continue to flow to the attached devices.

The Clamping Voltage is the voltage level at which point the surge protection device will divert the excess energy away from the line. Typical clamping voltages range between 330 and 500 Volts.

A surge protector will be designed to respond to a voltage spike within a certain period of time, as it is impossible to respond instantaneously. A short response time will ensure that connected devices are not exposed to the excess voltages for too long a duration. The voltage spikes themselves take time to reach their peak voltage, so surge suppression devices are designed to react in several nanoseconds, which is before most voltage spikes would reach peak. Although some manufacturers quote response times on their products, this is not always an important factor when choosing a surge suppression product, mainly because response times of MOVs are always significantly faster than the time the average surge takes to peak.

If you are still using multi-outlet power plugs or adapters, then please consider replacing them with surge strips. For a few pounds you can protect your expensive audio or video equipment and also provide a safer environment in the home by having a more secure connection to your mains power outlet. Surge protection does make sense and will give you some peace of mind for your home appliances.

This article on Surge Protection was written by David Christie, MD at NSTUK Ltd,  Website http://www.ipexpress.co.uk .

What is an Ethernet Switch?

An Ethernet switch is a networking device that is used in almost all data networks to provide connectivity for our networking devices. Prior to the invention of the Ethernet switch, our Ethernet data networks used either Repeaters or Hubs to build Local Area Networks.

Before Ethernet Switches, a lot of networks used coaxial cable for local network connections, in a network topology that became known as a bus network. The most common bus networks used two early Ethernet cabling standards, which were the 10Base5 and 10Base2 coaxial cable standards. The 10Base5 networks were often referred to as Thicknet, while the 10Base2 networks were known as Thinnet. All network devices such as computers and servers were connected to a segment of cable in what was known as a “shared environment”, or more commonly a collision domain. This type of network relied on data being broadcast across the media to all connected devices.

The invention of the hub made it easier for devices to be added or removed from the network, but an Ethernet network using a Hub was still a collision domain, where collisions were way of life. Ethernet network interface cards were designed to use CSMA/CD and detect and deal with collisions. Unfortunately collisions do have an effect of slowing down a network and make that network less than efficient. A Hub is said to be a Layer-1 device as it has no real intelligence, and in fact it is really just a multi-port repeater, with data entering one port being duplicated when sent out the other ports. The reference to Layer 1 is to the bottom layer of the OSI 7 Layer reference model.

The Hub was eventually replaced by the Ethernet switch as the most common device in Local Area Networks. The switch, which is a much more efficient device, is said to be a more intelligent device than a Hub because it is able to interrogate the data within the Ethernet Frames, whereas a hub just retransmits the data. With Ethernet, we use 48-bit MAC Addresses when labelling specific physical network interfaces, and an Ethernet frame of data contains both the Source and Destination MAC Addresses to enable data to be routed and switched from one specific physical interface to another.

An Ethernet switch has 3 main functions, which are:

Address Learning

Forwarding and Filtering

Loop Avoidance.

Address Learning

When a data frame enters through a port on a switch, the Ethernet Switch reads the Source MAC Address and adds that address to a MAC Address Table. This table is often referred to as Content Addressable Memory (CAM). Within the table the MAC Address is associated with the physical port on the switch to which the network device is attached. The switch now knows which port to forward data to when an Ethernet frame arrives from elsewhere in the network, because it checks the destination MAC Address, and looks for a match in the table. The Destination MAC Address is therefore used by the Ethernet Switch to forward data out of the correct port to reach the correct physical interface.

Forwarding and Filtering

When a switch receives an Ethernet frame, it will read the Destination MAC Address in order to determine which port to forward the data out of. When a switch receives an Ethernet frame with a Destination MAC Address that is not referenced in the table, it floods that frame out of all ports in an attempt to reach the correct physical interface. If the correct device responds, then the switch will now know where that MAC Address resides, and is therefore able to add that address to the table for future reference.

LoopAvoidance

Almost all modern switches run a protocol known as the Spanning-Tree Protocol, or STP. STP was originally a proprietary protocol developed by DEC, but is now an IEEE Standard known as IEEE 802.1d, which was later revised to IEEE 802.1w (Rapid Spanning-Tree Protocol). The role of Spanning Tree is to detect and manage loops in a network, which can be a big problem by allowing duplicate frames to be delivered, and cause the MAC Address Table to become unstable.  In severe cases network loops will cause a network to be over subscribed and eventually be overwhelmed by the amount of data. Spanning-Tree allows network designers to build redundancy and resilience into a network, safe in the knowledge that any physical or logical loops created will be managed by the Spanning Tree Protocol.

You will hear the terms Layer 2 and Layer 3 Switch, what do they mean?

A Layer 2 Ethernet switch operates by performing like we described in the previous paragraphs. The Layer 2 name comes from the fact that it operates at Layer 2 of the OSI 7 Layer Reference Model. This Layer is often referred to as the Data-Link Layer, and it is the layer that Ethernet is described, and where MAC Addresses are used.

So what is a Layer 3 Ethernet Switch?

A Layer 3 Ethernet Switch combines the features and functions of a basic Layer 2 switch, with features normally associated with a Router. In fact, it is probably easy to describe a Layer 3 switch as a switch and a router combined. A Layer 3 switch will have either a number of fixed Ethernet ports that have layer 3 IP Addresses associated with them, or more commonly, configurable ports that can be Layer 2 or Layer 3 as desired. All but the smallest home consumer Layer 2 switches allow the configuration of VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks), but are not able to directly route traffic between multiple VLANs. In order to do this, the addition of a Layer 3 device such as a Router would be needed. A Layer 3 switch can perform this function in addition to tradition Layer 2 switch functions.

When purchasing an Ethernet switch, you need to determine what its role will be in the network, and whether or not Layer 3 functions will be required. Normally a Layer 3 Ethernet switch will be more expensive than a comparable Layer 2 device, so it would be an unnecessary expense to employ a Layer 3 switch when a Layer 2 switch would suffice.

Ethernet switches have evolved since the first simple devices were introduced, and some have a lot of additional features and support a wide range of ever increasing network protocols. Some of these features and protocols will be discussed in future articles.

David Christie is MD at NSTUK Ltd, a Technical Training and Consultancy company based in the Northeast of England. David delivers technical training in the area of Data Communications and Telecoms and also provides consultancy and Training Needs Analysis. The company runs an ecommerce website specialising in the sale of Networking hardware and consumer electronics. Website: http://www.ipexpress.co.uk

For Great Value Ethernet Switches, follow:

http://www.ipexpress.co.uk/Ethernet-Switches-Networking/b/681702031

What is a KVM Switch?

A KVM Switch allows the connection of a Keyboard, VDU (Video Display Unit) and mouse to multiple computers. The user determines which one of a number of computers they would like to take control of. It is a hardware device that allows selection of individual computers or servers by means of a simple control system using a simple dial or button.

Some KVM Switches can have the added capability to control associated USB devices and even speakers. Products utilising Category 5 twisted pair cable can be used to control equipment at distances up to 300 metres, often using some form of manufacturers proprietary protocols.

A later innovation has been KVM over IP, where the KVM Switch conveys the control information and captured keyboard, video and mouse signals via an IP over Ethernet link to a remote application. This greatly increases the range and scope of control over LAN, WAN and Serial Point-to-Point links. The common method is to connect via a web browser using some form of proprietary software, but security is an obvious issued. This is dealt with by implementing SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) with 128-bit encryption.

Organisations that have a number of dedicated servers may well opt to use KVM Switches to enable the servers to be monitored and controlled individually from a single device. Administrators and operators can switch between physical server devices at the flick of a switch or push of a button.

Keyboard, Video and Mouse Switches come in various formats including Desktop and Rackmounted models. These products come as Direct Connect systems, Networked systems and those that are controlled from a dedicated console. In addition to the KVM Switches most major manufacturers will normally have an extensive range of accessories such as interface modules, cable adapters and cable kits.

For some time now, VGA based switches have probably been the most popular format, but HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) and DVI (Digital Visual Interface) are quickly becoming efficient digital alternatives to VGA.

DVI is a common digital standard that is popular for PC connections to display units and HDMI is an uncompressed digital standard for audio and video signals. It is able to pass both the video and audio down a single cable between such devices as DVD Players, Set-Top boxes and a digital television.

Control connections on KVM switches are commonly PS/2, which was the common standard for mouse and keyboard connections for many years, and USB which is simpler and more flexible. A lot of Switches have the option of either. The user just has to remember to purchase the right cable types, unless they are supplied with the switch.

KVM Switches are manufactured by a large number of manufacturers. If you are looking to purchase then I recommend the manufacturer that has a good reputation for providing an extensive range of accessories and a good range of switches themselves.

David Christie is MD at NSTUK Ltd, a Technical Training and Consultancy company based in the Northeast of England. David delivers technical training in the area of Data Communications and Telecoms and also provides consultancy and Training Needs Analysis. The company runs an ecommerce website specialising in the sale of Networking hardware and consumer electronics. Website: http://www.ipexpress.co.uk

For a Great range of KVM Switches and Accessories follow:

http://www.ipexpress.co.uk/Tripp-Lite-KVM-Switches/b/931344031?ie=UTF8&title=Tripp%20Lite%20KVM%20Switches

What type of WiFi Antenna do I need?

When deciding to deploy a Wireless LAN (WLAN) solution within a building or facility, there are many factors to consider. The first most obvious consideration is the radio or RF coverage required within the facility, the size and design of the facility will determine the number of wireless access points required to provide that coverage. Another consideration will be selection of the appropriate wireless antennas to provide the desired coverage.

The wireless antenna is one of the most important components of any wireless access point or wireless client device, because it is the antenna that determines how the radio signals are propagated, what type of radiation pattern they produce and how much gain they produce. The radiation pattern may be isotropic, meaning that the antenna radiates the signal equally in all directions, and we often refer to these antennas as omni-directional. Depending on the siting of the antenna, we may need a radiation pattern than is not isotropic, but radiates in a pattern that maximises the radio signal in a certain direction.

Before we get into a description of different types of WiFi antenna, how much gain they produce and what type of radiation pattern they typically provide, I must stress that when deploying a wireless LAN for the first time, it is very important to have a wireless site survey conducted to determine the siting of the access points and also highlight any problem areas where specialist wireless antennas may be required.

A Wireless Antenna will normally be designed to work efficiently over a narrow band of frequencies, the wider the range of frequencies the antenna will operate over, the more “Broadband” the antenna is said to be. WiFi Antennas will operate either in the 2.4Ghz ISM band or the 5Ghz band, so the antenna must be designed to operate within those specific frequency ranges.

In most countries there will be a restriction on the amount of power a wireless antenna can transmit, and this is usually in the region of 1 Watt, with a 6dBi gain for omni-directional antennas and somewhere in the region of 23dBi for directional antennas. The reasons for the restrictions being mainly to reduce interference with other users within a particular frequency band.

Antenna gain is the measure of how much effective signal power is increased by an antenna for a given input power, and is measured in decibels (dB). Decibels are calculated on a logarithmic scale, and an example would be a 3dB increase represents a doubling of power ie. 25 milliwatt input would produce a 50 milliwatt output. EIRP or Effective Isotropic Radiated Power is determined by the Transmit Power and Antenna Gain ie 15 dBm transmit power with 6 dB gain would produce an EIRP of 21 dBm

Lets take a look at some of the antenna types available and how they typically perform:

Omni-Directional Antennas                                                                                                                               

This type of Antenna, as previously stated normally produces an isotropic radiation pattern that is often referred to as a “Doughnut” shape. It is worth bearing in mind that true isotropic antennas tend to be purely theoretical and other types of omni-directional antennas are compared to that of an isotropic design.

Vertical Omni

A vertical omi-directional antenna is usually based on a dipole design where the radiation pattern of a dipole antenna is 360 degrees in the horizontal plane, with the vertical plane varying depending on whether the dipole is vertical or not. A vertically orientated dipole antenna normally has a 75 degree radiation pattern. Dipole antennas are normally said to have a gain, on average of a little over 2Db.  

Ceiling domes

These antennas are designed to be mounted on the ceiling, above false ceilings or even on walls. Because of their less obstructed view, they tend to have a higher gain of around 3Db.

Rubber Ducks

Rubber duck wireless antennas were first used with early walkie talkies as a cut down whip aerial designed at one quarter wavelength. Because of this they are termed electrically short antennas, usually having a wire type element covered with a rubber sheathing, making them flexible and robust. They are vertically mounted and have a 360 degree radiation pattern similar to that of a half-wave dipole. These are the antennas that you see on most mass produced wireless routers for the home market.

Directional Antennas

Reflecting and radiating elements are added to the standard di-pole design to concentrate the signal energy in a specific direction. Directional antennas can give a gain over the standard isotropic antenna of between around 3dB as much as 20Db.

Yagi

Yagi antennas are referred to as high gain antennas and have multiple reflector  and radiating elements to give a typical gain of between 12 and 20dB. They are often used as outdoor antennas and will have a typical horizontal beamwidth of around 30 degrees and 15-25 degrees vertical beamwidth.

Dish

The most common  type of dish Wireless Antenna is the parabolic dish, which uses a curved parabola shaped dish to direct the wireless radio waves to a narrow beamwidth. These type of antennas are extremely highly directive and can also have extremely high gain, as much as 40 or 50dB. One of the design factors is that the dish will be larger than the wavelength of the design radio frequency. Most often used for point to point wireless communications links. Outdoor wireless bridges will often use a Parabolic Dish Antenna.

Patch Antenna

You will often find Patch Antennas deployed in office type environments, normally attached high up on a wall, or sometimes ceiling mounted. Typical horizontal beamwidth is around 70-80 degrees, but this can extend to around 100 degrees. Construction is normally a pair of metal plates that are actually the antenna elements, which together make up the transmission line. They are normally of half-wavelength design, with typical gain being around 2dB, similar to a traditional dipole antenna.

Of course, there are many other variations of wireless antenna which have not had a mention here, but this article was designed to give the layman a simple explanation of basic Wireless Antenna types.

Following a successful Wireless Site Survey, the majority of access points in anything but the smallest office environment will normally employ dome antennas or vertical dipoles. Problem areas may be better served by Patch or Sector wireless antennas to maximise the coverage area.

This article on Wireless Antennas was written by David Christie, MD at NSTUK Ltd,  Website http://www.ipexpress.co.uk .  For Wireless Antenna Products, visit  http://www.ipexpress.co.uk/Wireless-Antennas-Wireless-Networking-Products/b/681707031

What is Broadband?

The term Broadband has been used to describe a number of things over the years, but when you mention Broadband to most people these days, they think of high-speed Internet. The term Broadband Internet is used by service providers to describe the high speed services on offer to connect to the Internet using either DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) services or Cable. A Broadband Router is a device that routes data packets to and from a Local Area Network and the Internet via an interface supporting one of a number of DSL Broadband technologies.

The first time I heard the term Broadband was when studying to be a Radio Officer and learning Radio Theory. A Broadband Antenna was one which was not resonant at a particular frequency but would work over a range of frequencies. We used to discuss methods of “Broadbanding an Antenna”.

In the early 1980s, the ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) was devised with what was known as Basic Rate Access with fixed 64Kbps channels and Primary Rate Access with either 1.544Mbps or 2.048Mbps. Broadband was used to describe ISDN Services above the Primary Rates, and normally referred to Optical Networking with the ITU-T G.707 and G.709 standards.

Most households in Western Europe and the US now have some form of Broadband Service for connection to the Internet, and will employ some form of Broadband Router or Broadband Modem to provide that service. What about the technology behind it? The majority of Broadband Internet Services are provided by means of Digital Subscriber Line, and more specifically Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL).

Telephone cables have traditionally carried our analogue telephone signals and the associated signalling within the first 4Khz of available frequency response on the cable. ADSL uses more of the available bandwidth on the cable to support both an Uplink and Downlink high-speed modem. The term ADSL comes from the fact that the Uplink and Downlink modems run at different speeds, with the Downlink significantly faster than the Uplink. This is because we often request content from the Internet such as web pages and therefore we need a faster downlink connection to bring that content to us.  In most cases we employ a Broadband Router or Modem to provide these services, while at the same time maintaining our traditional telephony service.

The first true High Speed ADSL standard known as ANSI T1.413-1998 Issue 2  was released in 1998 and provided for a downstream signal of up to 8Mbps and upstream signal of up to 1Mbps. The speed was dependent upon the length of copper cable on the local loop, with 10,000 – 12,000 feet being common. Further standards continued to be developed to provide these broadband services, and in 2002 the ADSL2 standard was first introduced, which increased the downstream rates to around 12Mbps. This was quickly followed in 2003 by the ADSL2+ Standards which saw a massive increase in Broadband downstream data rates to around 24Mbps.

How does ADSL2 and ADSL2+ manage to achieve these faster data rates? They use a type of modulation known as DMT or Discrete Multi Tone which is a form of FDM (Frequency Division Multiplex) where the available bandwidth is split into smaller sub channels that each have a subcarrier which used a form of Phase Shift Keyed Modulation. ADSL2 uses 256 of these sub-channels, each containing a modulated subcarrier with the upper frequency range being around 1.1Mhz. ADSL2+ effectively doubles Broadband speeds by using a wider frequency range up to an upper limit of around 2.2Mhz with 512 sub-channels. The data is fed to the sub-carriers and transmitted in parallel to provide Broadband Speeds of up to 24Mbps.

Most service providers in the developed countries are either already providing a Broadband service up to 24Mbps, or will be in the near future, and it will be a version of ADSL2+ that they are using. If you want to take advantage of these fast Internet services then you really need a Broadband Router that supports this technology. Obviously a Broadband Router manufactured before the standards were introduced will not support these faster Broadband speeds, so you may want to consider upgrading your Broadband Router if you are not using a device supplied by your Service Provider.

This article on Broadband was written by David Christie, MD at NSTUK Ltd, Website http://www.ipexpress.co.uk

How to Connect a Wireless Router

When connecting a Wireless Router to the Internet and to provide a WLAN (Wireless Local Network) for local connectivity, it is important that you firstly have a working Broadband DSL connection to the Internet via a DSL modem. A lot of non-technical people get confused about the difference between a wireless router and an Internet Gateway Router, which has a built-in modem and so does not need a standalone DSL modem.

Let us assume you already have a DSL Modem and you have tested connectivity to the Internet through the modem with a PC. Now we need to connect the wireless router to the DSL Modem and also set up the local Wireless LAN to enable local devices to connect wirelessly with the device. If you have a cable modem, because your broadband service from your Internet Service Provider is a cable service then the setup is very similar, having already tested the functionality of the Cable Modem. In order to connect to the wireless router, your PCs, Notebooks or even Gaming Consoles need to support the IEEE 802.11 wireless standards. In other words they must have a wireless NIC card either built-in to the Motherboard or you will need to purchase a wireless adapter, the most common being USB Wireless Adapters which are largely Plug and Play.

Another important thing to remember when purchasing your wireless router, is to make sure it is not a wireless access point, otherwise it will not have the routing function which essential to connect your wireless devices to the Internet.

We are almost ready to start connecting our wireless device, so it would be a good idea to have a copy of any setup instructions that came with the device. They will be very similar, regardless of the manufacturer, but there will be subtle differences.

Switch off or unplug your existing DSL Modem or Cable Modem. If it is a DSL Modem then it will be connected to a telephone point with a supplied telephone cable, usually via an ADSL filter. Next take the network cable supplied with your wireless router and plug one end into the RJ-45 receptacle on the DSL Modem (there will usually only be one). Connect the other end of the cable into the WAN port on your wireless router. Most wireless routers also have 4 ports to enable you to connect 4 separate PCs via cables. The WAN port is normally distinct from the computer ports my means of colour coding or due to the fact that it is separate from the other 4 ports.

The next step is to plug in and switch on the DSL Modem and wait few minutes to enable it to boot and then synchronise with the Service Provider network via the telephone cable. Your DSL Modem will normally have a visible LED indicating a successful connection to the Internet.

Now switch on your wireless routing device that you previously connected to the DSL Modem, and shortly a green LED will normally indicate successful connection to your Modem. We are now almost ready to start configuring the Wireless Router itself.

Use a network patch cable to connect a working PC to one of the usually 4 network ports on the wireless device. A built in DHCP Server in the wireless router should allocate an appropriate IP Address to the PC being used for configuration. Open up a browser window on your PC and type in the URL provided by the manufacturer in the address bar. For example Linksys routers normally use the URL http://192.168.1.1 . Success should result in the router default configuration page becoming visible in your browser window. Your router instructions should give you the default username and password required to access the main wireless router configuration. This will often be admin and admin, or whatever your router instructions informs you. Once you have successfully entered the Username and Password, then navigate to the section that allows you to change the settings and configure an admin Username and Password that you can remember. Save the settings!!

You should now be able to test the connection to the Internet by disconnecting the cable and connecting to the wireless network by using your PC wireless connection. Bring up a browser window and try connecting to a favourite website, maybe a search engine like Google. If successful then the final step is to secure your wireless network by configuring wireless security settings, normally WPA or WPA2.

Either via your wireless connection or by reconnecting the cable between the PC and the wireless router, navigate back to the wireless router’s default configuration page and find the wireless security settings section. You will be required to configure the SSID of the wireless router. Your router will have a default SSID, but you should change it to a name that you remember. When you or your family are trying to connect a PC to the wireless router in the future, this name will ensure they attempt to connect to the correct wireless network instead of a neighbours network. Now select WPA or WPA2 settings from the configuration (WPA2 is more secure, if available). Configure a unique pass phrase that you can remember and the wireless router will use this pass phrase to generate a secure network key that is used to authenticate devices and to encrypt data passing over the wireless network. Remember to save this configuration again.

You will now need to reconnect your wireless enabled PC to the wireless network and you will be asked for the same pass phrase when your PC attempts to connect to the wireless network with the SSID you configured earlier.

If no mistakes have been made then you should now be able to connect to the Internet from the wireless enabled PC. Any other PCs that require wireless access just need to be configured with the correct SSID and pass phrase and connectivity should be quick and efficient. Good Luck.

This article on configuration of wireless routers was written by David Christie, MD at NSTUK Ltd, Website http://www.ipexpress.co.uk

IPexpress: Patch Cables

IPexpress: Patch Cables

IPexpress: RAID Controllers

IPexpress: RAID Controllers

IPexpress: What is a Firewall?

IPexpress: What is a Firewall?

IPexpress: What is a Wireless Router?

IPexpress: What is a Wireless Router?