Benefits of home networking
 

  • Share Internet access 

    • Two or more people in your home can cruise the Internet simultaneously  without disturbing the other users of your home network. This will help to reduce costs in the long run This should also include a firewall or router or a combination of both. See the feature article for February to learn about all of the different devices available to secure your network.

  • Connect to the Internet with the fastest device on the network

By using a home network, all of your PCs can access the Internet at the speed of the fastest device on the network. So, the entire family can use a single cable modem or DSL modem line to browse the Internet. Many devices sharing the same access point requires the use of NAT. See the definitions page for more information.

Note: Some ISPs do not allow sharing devices without an additional cost to the consumer.

  • Share peripheral devices 

    • With a home network, everyone on the network can use the same printer, scanner, zip drive etc, eliminating the need of buying a printer and scanner for every user of the network.

  • Play multi-player games

    • Have a family LAN party or invite the friends over for a quick competition in your favorite on-line games. Work with multiple members of the family at the same time playing RPGs like Everquest and Half-Life.

  • Easily move files from one PC to the other

    • You can move any file on your network from one system to another. Now, you no longer need to keep a stack of floppy disks to transfer files back and forth! Using programs like the ones built in to Windows based machines and even Linux as well, you can create file storage shares for easy exchanges between machines on the home network.