Wireless Home

Networking

FOR

DUMmIES‰

by Danny Briere, Walter R. Bruce III, and Pat Hurley

Wireless Home

Networking

FOR

DUMmIES‰

Wireless Home

Networking

FOR

DUMmIES‰

by Danny Briere, Walter R. Bruce III, and Pat Hurley

Wireless Home Networking For Dummies®

Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

909 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2003 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8700. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4447, e-mail: permcoordinator@ wiley.com.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of Wiley Publishing, Inc., in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: WHILE THE PUBLISHER AND AUTHOR HAVE USED THEIR BEST EFFORTS IN PREPARING THIS BOOK, THEY MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES REPRESENTATIVES OR WRITTEN SALES MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUR SITUATION. YOU SHOULD CONSULT WITH A PROFESSIONAL WHERE APPROPRIATE. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFIT OR ANY OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR OTHER DAMAGES.

For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2003101860

ISBN: 0-7645-3910-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1B/SR/QV/QT/IN

is a trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc.

About the Authors

Danny Briere founded TeleChoice, Inc., a telecommunications consulting company, in 1985 and now serves as CEO of the company. Widely known throughout the telecommunications and networking industry, Danny has written more than 1,000 articles about telecommunications topics and has authored or edited eight books, including Internet Telephony For Dummies,

Smart Homes For Dummies, 2nd Edition, and Home Theater For Dummies. He is frequently quoted by leading publications on telecommunications and technology topics and can often be seen on major TV networks providing analysis on the latest communications news and breakthroughs. Danny lives in Mansfield Center, Connecticut, with his wife and four children.

Walter R. Bruce III is a writer and consultant who is an avid wireless network user and who has been programming and using computers since the late 1960s (that’s right, he’s old). For more than a dozen years, Walter has been training computer users and writing and publishing books about computer technology. He has written many internationally published books on a variety of computer operating system, database, telecommunication, and networking topics. As a publishing professional, he has also directed the publication of hundreds of computer-related books for three successful publishing companies. Walter holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics as well as a law degree. Walter installed his first network in 1985 in the Pentagon while working for the Judge Advocate General of the United States Air Force. He was practicing law in the USAF when he discovered his affinity for teaching people how to use computers. For several years, he has directed Novell Press, the official publisher of books about Novell networking technology. Walter currently lives with his family in the Silicon Valley area of northern California.

Pat Hurley is a consultant with TeleChoice, Inc., specializing in emerging telecommunications technologies including all the latest access and home technologies: wireless LANs, DSL, cable modems, satellite services, and home networking services. Pat frequently consults with the leading telecommunications carriers, equipment vendors, consumer goods manufacturers, and other players in the telecommunications and consumer electronics industries. Pat is the co-author of Internet Telephony For Dummies, Smart Homes For Dummies, 2nd Edition, and Home Theater For Dummies. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife and two smelly dogs.

Dedication

To Mom and Dad, you’ve always been there for us. We can’t thank you enough.

—Walt

Authors’ Acknowledgments

Danny wants to thank his wife, Holly, and kids, for their infinite patience while he and Pat wrestled with this book toward the finish line. He agrees that the wireless Webcam in the shower was not a good idea. (Just kidding.) He also wants to thank his sister, Michelle, for all her hard work over the years that has made it possible to continue to survive in this crazy business environment — we could not have made it without her. He also wants to note that he got his pot rack (see Smart Homes for Dummies, 2nd Edition for details). Now if we can only talk her into the 42-inch Samsung HDTV that he wants.

Walt would like to thank all the staff at Wiley for the incredible hours of work that go into the publication of every book — especially this one. There are many people whose work is essential to each book’s publication but who seem to go unnoticed and unthanked. So let me say thank you to Andy Cummings, to Melody Layne for having the confidence in us to write this book, and to Nicole Sholly for her invaluable project management. Thanks also to Teresa Artman for her crisp copy editing, to Michael Williams for his invaluable technical review, and to all the unnamed people at Wiley who buy the paper, hire the printer, design and produce the cover, hire and manage the proofreader and indexer, design and implement marketing plans and promotions, sell the book to the retailer, pay the bills (especially the royalties), and perform all the other unnamed but still necessary tasks to keep a major publisher in business. Finally, I want to thank my family — Terry, Rich, Rob, Heather, Heidi, Monty, and Tahj (yes, I have a big family) — for putting up with me for all these years. You’re the greatest.

Pat, as always, thanks his wife, Christine, for providing her impeccable “Can I write this wisecrack and not get in trouble?” judgment, and for her ability to restrain her desire to knock him over the head with a big frying pan when deadlines and late-night writing intrude on the domestic tranquility. He also wants to thank her for letting him hog the computers and the sofa while writing.

Danny and Pat want to thank the following people and organizations for their support in writing this book: Jeff Denenholz at X10 who has been a huge supporter for all our books (buy X10 stuff so that Jeff looks good); Doug Fay at ConnectPR for Siemens/Efficient Networks and D’Andre Ladson at Siemens/Efficient Networks; Doug Hagan at NETGEAR; Fred Bargetzi at Crestron; Shawn Gusz at G-NET Canada (still waiting to try Auroras in our cars!); Karen Sohl at Linksys; Keith Smith at Siemon; Mark Shapiro at Davis Marin for Proxim/ORiNOCO; Michael Scott at D-Link; Brad Kayton at Prismiq (best of luck with the venture!); Bryan McLeod at Intrigue Technologies; Craig Slawson at CorAccess (good luck too!); and others who helped get content correct for the readers.

Really extra special thanks go to Ed Ferris, IT Manager at TeleChoice, who by all rights should have been a co-author on this book (and only wasn’t because the covers had already printed) for all the process and technical editing that he performed on the book. Ed, you’ll be on the cover next edition if we have any say in the matter.

Thanks also to our acquisition editor, Melody Layne, who by now knows every product that will be wirelessly enabled from here to eternity, and to our project editor, Nicole Sholly, who probably hates being an editor at this point but nonetheless let us rant about the problems when they occurred (which they did constantly, continually, and drastically). Melody was a true champ keeping her faith up in Pat and Danny while they continually rewrote text in this book to make it more accurate and timely.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services