How to set up your network for speedy and discrete performance
NETWORKING IS HARD. In terms of setting up your electronic gear, it’s probably the most technical thing you’ll have to do. It’s full of buzzwords and jargon, and it’s not always clear to the layman how you should proceed or what is good practice and bad.
So this month, we’ve gone back to the basics once more to take a walk through setting up a home network properly. We’ll start by looking at the most critical element — the router — so you can understand how best to configure it, where to place it and its overall role in tying your network together.
THE ANATOMY OF THE MODEM ROUTER
Although it’s conveniently bundled in a single (hopefully) easy-to-use package, the modern consumer modem router is actually an agglomeration of a bunch of what were once discreet networking components. To give you a quick recap of what those are, they include:
- A router, which is the thing that figures out how to get data from your home to its destination on the internet (hence the name). It also does a bunch of other stuff, like network address translation (NAT, which allows multiple devices in your house to share the one IP address), tra c shaping and quality of service (making sure voice and video is prioritised over other traffic), firewall security and more.
- A modem, which talks to a speci c type of broadband service, for example ADSL or cable. We generally call a router with a modem inbuilt a “modem router”. If a router does not have a modem, we just call it a “broadband router” — it’s connectivity to the outside world (the WAN port) is regular Ethernet port — the same type of ports used for local area network devices. A broadband router can be used where you have an external modem (or, as is the case in fibre-to-the-home NBN, where the modem is supplied as part of the customer equipment by the service provider).
- An Ethernet switch, which connects wired devices on your local network. ink back to old-timey telephone switches, where you had operators manually connecting incoming and outgoing lines when someone wanted to make a phone call. Well, a switch works kind of like that. e device connected to port 1 may say “I’d like to talk to the device connected to port 3”, and the switch then connects the two so they can talk to each other. Of course, in an electronic switch that can happen thousands of times per second, and connections are not made to transfer complete conversations but rather chunks of data called packets.
- A wireless access point, which serves as a hub through which wireless devices can communicate. It operates a lot like a switch, but over the airwaves instead of over wires.
- Additional components like file and media servers are also commonly built into routers now, allowing them to share data stored on storage devices attached to the router’s USB ports.
THE BEST GEAR RIGHT NOW
So now that we’ve established what a router is made of, what are the best things you should be looking for in those individual components right now?
Router: this one is tough. e processor in the router matters quite a bit, with faster processors being able to calculate routes and apply security more efficiently. Unfortunately, in most cases it’s unknowable, since, especially in cheaper devices, it’s o en not speci ed. In general, though, you get what you pay for, with more expensive devices having faster processors and more memory.
Modem: obviously you need to get a modem that matches the type of network you’re connecting to. If you have an ADSL service, you need a router with an ADSL modem port. But there are some things you should be aware of. Times are changin’, and the NBN is bringing new networks online. If you’re buying an ADSL modem today, you should look for two extra things: an Ethernet WAN port and VDSL support. e Ethernet WAN port will let you connect to fibre-to-the-home services. VDSL will let you use the router with fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) or fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) services when they come online in your area.
Switch: you want nothing less than Gigabit Ethernet (that’s 1000mbps). Some routers still come with Fast Ethernet (100mbps) and that’s just not up to snu anymore. Technically, there’s also 10GbE (10,000mbps), but that’s not available yet in integrated consumer devices or at anything even remotely resembling consumer prices.
Wireless: the current Wi-Fi standard is 802.11ac, and it’s probably not advisable to get a router that doesn’t support it (some still are limited to the older 802.11n standard). Multiple favours of 802.11ac are also on o er, and the best you can currently get is 1733mbps. Devices capable of 1733mbps will have an “AC2350” or “AC2600” rating. There is technically a higher AC rating: AC3200, but we’ll cover why we don’t love AC3200 in the broadband router reviews.
USB: if you plan on taking advantage of the file sharing capability of your router look for devices that have USB 3.0 ports. It makes a huge difference in file copy performance.
SETTING UP THE ROUTER
So you’ve got yourself a new router, and are looking to set it up the best way possible. We’ll walk through the five key steps you need to go through to do that.
POSITIONING THE ROUTER
This is a huge deal, and one that’s too often ignored. Most people either take the attitude “wherever my broadband comes in, that’s where my router goes” or “this thing is so ugly that I just want to bury it out of sight.” Both are bad options.
For wired connectivity — both to your broadband port and to wired devices, the distance between the router and the device or outlet to which it’s attached doesn’t matter that much. Ethernet LAN cables can run up to 100m without signal loss. The phone line or coaxial cable has already run hundreds of meters to your home — a few more won’t matter much.
But for wireless, router positioning is a huge deal. The further the signal has to travel, the weaker it gets and the worse the performance gets. Intervening walls will weaken the signal as well — the denser the material, the weaker the signal. This is especially true now: 802.11ac, for all it’s advantages, operates at a higher frequency spectrum (5GHz) than 802.11n (which used 2.4GHz or 5GHz). That means it often has more trouble passing through intervening walls and objects.
Ideally you want your router to be located somewhere in the middle of your home. Yes, that means you might have to run an extended phone or coaxial cable from your broadband outlet, but it will make a huge difference to your wireless performance.
There are other factors you can account for as well. People in multi-storey homes often have the worst issues, because the antennae of most routers are aligned for reception on the horizontal plane rather than the vertical. You can try and account for this by putting the router up high or down low to try and position it best between floors. (If that doesn’t work, we have a section on dealing with black spots a little bit later).
Certain materials also cause signi cant signal problems. Dense brick, any kind of metal in or on the walls, tiles, mirrors, fish tanks, concrete, chicken wire and various other things can create a shadow in the wireless signal. Kitchens and bathrooms are often bad places to place your router, so you need to think about what lies between the place you put the router and the places you’d like to be able to receive wireless signals.
Be prepared to move your router if there are problems with reception. ere’s an Android app we absolutely love: WiFi Analyzer, which you can grab on Google Play. It’s not, unfortunately, available on non-jailbroken iOS devices. It lets your Android device serve as a signal strength detector for Wi-Fi networks. You won’t be able to really use it until you’ve started your wireless network up (see stage 3) below, but once you do you can use it to find your ideal position for the router.
When the router is in position, fire up WiFi Analyzer and look for your network. You want a nice high reception curve for it. en walk around your house and see how the reception changes in different locations. Are there locations with bad signal strength or where the signal disappears completely? Then you might have to reposition your router to account for it, then try again.
CONNECTING WIRED DEVICES
Any non-mobile devices in your house are best connected to the wired LAN ports on your router. Wired connections are much faster and much more stable than wireless ones.
You use an Ethernet cable with RJ-45 connectors. ere are multiple types of Ethernet cable: Cat 5, Cat 5e, Cat 6 and Cat 6a. Cat 5e is technically good enough for Gigabit Ethernet, but if you want to be sure, you can make sure your purchase Cat 6 (or 6a) cable instead. For the most part, you can use unshielded twisted pair (UTP cabling) unless you want to do something funky like running the cable in bundles through wall conduits. In that case, you’ll need shielded or foiled twisted pair (S/FTP).
Most home routers only come with four ports. That may not be enough for your needs. If it isn’t, it’s not a problem — a stand-alone gigabit Ethernet switch can be bought for around $40 to increase your port count. Ethernet is very flexible; any device can be plugged into any port and it has no issues. You can connect your new switch to the router via an Ethernet cable, and any device attached to the switch can talk to any device attached to the router. You should note that the connection between the switch and the router becomes what is called a backbone, and theoretically that link can become more heavily burdened than others, but it’s not really an issue in home installations.
Stand-alone switches also make a great solution to the loungeroom problem, where you might have a bunch of consoles, amps and TV sets that all want wired connections but you don’t want to run long cables for each. You instead run a single cable to a switch in your loungeroom and then connect the devices to that switch.
CONFIGURING WIRELESS
Now we get to the part where we actually switch the router on and start configuring it. Most routers nowadays come with wizards and apps you can install for easy setup and configuration. And they’re pretty good. Typically all you do is connect your computer or mobile to a wired port on the router or to a pre-made wireless network (the ID and password for which are supplied with the router) and run the wizard, which will step you through the basic settings for internet connectivity and wireless.
You may want to dig into the wireless settings a bit more, however. And that probably requires that you log onto the router’s admin console. You fire up a web browser and enter the IP address of your router into the address bar. The default IP address varies by router vendor. Typically, these are:
ASUS: 192.168.1.1
Belkin/iiNet: 192.168.1.1 or 10.1.1.1
Billion: 192.168.1.254
D-Link: 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1
Linksys: 192.168.1.1
NetCommWireless: 192.168.1.1
Netgear: 192.168.0.1
TP-Link: 192.168.1.1
The most common default username/password configuration is admin/admin. If that doesn’t work, you’ll have to check your router documentation for your model’s defaults.
That gets you to the true meat of the router’s configuration. Click on Wireless to get to the wireless settings. It’s here that we can tinker around to get the best performance.
You’ll see first that there are two wireless networks. at’s because your router is (most likely) a dual-band router, creating two discreet networks — one in the 2.4GHz band (which can only be 802.11n) and one in the 5GHz band (which can be 802.11n or 802.11ac). You can configure each of them separately.
Some settings you should look at:
- You can change the SSID/network name to something that’s personal to you. It doesn’t matter what it is.
- Make sure the security is set to WPA2 personal.
- Give it a good password (not a dictionary word) that you can remember.
- You can set the channel width to auto or just whatever is the highest number available (40MHz or 80MHz).
The channel number is a special setting. The Wi-Fi radio spectrum is broken up into channels, and you’ll only be using one of them as your main channel. The thing is, you don’t want to be using the same channel as your neighbours, because you’ll be competing for space on the airwaves (it’s not a security risk, however).
Here’s where we can roll out WiFi Analyzer again. You can use it to see what channels your neighbours are using by looking at the list of wireless networks. Choose a channel that none of them are using and you’ll get the best performance from your wireless network. Thankfully, some routers now have inbuilt intelligence that automatically does that for you, and you may be able to just leave it at “automatic.”
One other setting to configure before we’re done. Find the WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) setting and turn it to off. WPS is a big security risk, and one that’s not warranted given how few people actually use it. Passwords are fine.
CONFIGURING OTHER ELEMENTS
That’s the major admin console task for you to worry about, but there are certainly other things you can tinker with here. The firewall and port forwarding stuff is best le alone unless you know what you’re doing, but other things you can look at include:
Parental controls. These can filter unwanted websites before they even get to your network or restrict internet access times for certain devices. Most router parental controls, it must be said, are pretty crummy, but a few routers have good solutions.
USB storage. is is the setting for any storage devices attached to your router. This lets you set a password and network ID for Windows file sharing access, enable DLNA media service (so that DLNA media players and TV sets can stream movies and music from the attached storage) and possibly configure printer sharing if the device supports it.
Once that’s done, you can give your new network a whirl. Can every device access the internet at full speeds (speedtest.net is your friend here)? Do you have any black spots in your home? Do devices connecting to your wireless network require a password (they most definitely should)?
If everything is working and in order, you’ve got yourself a good home network. If not, you may have to play with repositioning your router again — or continue reading to check out our guides on smooth video streaming and fixing black spots.