If you want to build a personal network, planning ahead can save both money and time especially if you ever know you will grow your local area network in the distant future.

The whole point of coming up with a plan is to realize what you actually need to put in your network, after all there are many more things available than just having computers that connect to the internet.

This includes WiFi, cables, or even both

Although you might be only using wired connections, will you be able to use WiFi in the future?

Almost everyone at some point, and the difference in prices between a wired router and wireless router is small, and just about every wireless router still have a wired ethernet hub built into them meaning we can still connect both wired and wireless devices.

The whole point most people want a home network setup is to share an internet connection, in this case it’s imperative the security and the router has the latest firmware, this includes Wireless Security, Router Security & each computer must have a firewall, anti-spyware and a firewall.

Long gone are the days of having to share your hard drive or have a special computer, network attached hard drives are easy to setup and they typically have space from 500gb to 2tb. Some even have a wireless option.

The speed of a network can be a major factor if you send big files, truth be told a cabled network will always be faster than wireless, as a rule of thumb use cabled where possible and wifi where you have to, i.e laptops.

One of the big mistakes made when many of us are setting up a home network in the house is thinking about future expansions to the network, spending a little less today will only mean you spend more down the road, work within your budget but be realistic, setup the network that suits your needs and and budget.

By: Alex D Smith