Until recently, few home users had a compelling reason to install a network. In fact, most believed lans to be complex, expensive, and best left to rocket scientists. But with the proliferation of homes that have multiple computers and the introduction of broadband Internet connections, everyone in the family wants to be connected all the time. The idea of sharing a single PC is no longer acceptable. Suddenly, networking is compelling. Happily, LANs have become less complex, less expensive, and much easier to install.

The Old and the New
The first step in sharing a connection is linking your machines. The only thing you must decide is which technology to use.

Ethernet is by far the most accepted means of connection for business networks and is becoming the preferred solution for home LANs, for good reason. Ethernet is a tried-and-true technology; whatever products you choose will probably work, and work with each other.

There are some drawbacks, however. Many users worry about opening their machines to install an adapter, and many more are reluctant to drag cable to all corners of their houses. You can skirt these concerns by choosing another technology, but the connection from your cable or DSL modem to your computer is likely to be Ethernet, so you can't avoid Ethernet altogether.

Given its ubiquity, one alternate technology you're likely to consider is USB, and for that reason we decided to compare USB with Ethernet. We looked at ease of installation, performance, and cost. We also wanted to see if there was any disadvantage in using USB and an Ethernet converter to make the broadband connection rather than installing internal Ethernet adapters in the systems to be networked. Below we discuss USB in general, then take a look at the results of our tests.

The inclusion of Universal Serial Bus drivers in Windows 98 and the presence of a USB port on almost every PC and notebook makes this technology a viable option for all types of connections. USB is great for daisy-chaining modems, scanners, printers, and other peripherals to a single PC port, but data-transfer rates of up to 12 Mbps also make USB practical for connecting two or more PCs, allowing them to share files, printers, and an Internet connection. USB's biggest drawback is a cable-length limit of approximately 12 feet. Thus, wiring an entire office or, for that matter, multiple rooms in a home is almost impossible, but USB networking makes a lot of sense for a single-room office in the home.

One common use of USB networking is linking multiple devices to an Ethernet LAN via an Ethernet converter. A number of vendors offer such products. For the small-office market, the Xircom PortStation family of products is available in a number of port configurations. Some of these products are suitable for home use.

Two issues besides the length limitation keep USB from being an ideal solution for all users. First, the lack of drivers for operating systems other than Windows essentially makes USB a Windows solution on IBM compatibles, at least for now. This eliminates users who have chosen the increasingly popular Linux operating system. Perhaps more important, USB has been plagued by compatibility problems. For example, we were unable to make a Logitech USB scanner work on the same hub as a Multi-Tech modem. Each product works individually, but problems arise when you connect both to the same daisy chain. Fortunately, connecting two PCs together either directly or with a USB hub worked fine; an Ethernet-to-USB converter also does the trick. We definitely recommend using a converter to get more distance, scalability, and flexibility out of your home network.

What we found

• Installation. Some people think installing an Ethernet LAN is hard, because you have to open the PC case, install a network adapter, and configure strange protocols. As we found, though, configuring a USB network can be more complicated.

  Almost any Ethernet adapter you choose will be based on the PCI standard. Essentially, all you have to do is install the card in an empty slot inside your PC. Gone are the days of configuring interrupts and I/O addresses. In fact, we took only about 3 minutes to install our 3Com adapters for this test. After installation, we simply restarted the PC and Windows (both 98 and 2000) automatically recognised the adapter, installed the driver, and configured the network protocols without any intervention on our part.

  Although our USB solution didn't require us to open the case, we did need to install a special driver. Windows offers USB drivers, but only for the port, not always for specific devices. You may have to install and configure a separate driver for the USB device itself, whether printer, modem, scanner, or Ethernet converter. To be fair, this isn't very complicated and required about the same time as with the Ethernet adapter. For some users, however, the task could prove daunting.

• Performance. In terms of a broadband connection to the Internet, Ethernet and USB provide essentially the same performance. This is because the connection itself is still the bottleneck. For example, most DSL connections are based on the G.Lite specification, which provides 1.54-Mbps speed downstream (receiving), and 512 Kbps upstream (sending). USB provides 12 Mbps and Ethernet either 10 or 100 Mbps, so we found ourselves waiting on the DSL modem, not the network connection. Even the higher speed G.dmt (discrete multitone) DSL specification maxes out at around 8 Mbps. On our tests with a G.lite simulator, we could see no difference in downloads or uploads between USB and Ethernet. Knowing that the Internet can be even slower, depending on the site you're visiting, we see no performance benefit for either technology if all you're going to do is surf the Internet.

  Connecting to the Internet via a cable modem with a claimed rating of 3 Mbps produced the same result. Realistic connection speeds with a cable modem are closer to 1.5 Mbps, because you share the bandwidth with all your cable-connected neighbors. Again, as with DSL, we found the bottleneck to be the modem and not our USB or Ethernet network.

  Note that although our tests show that Ethernet and USB provide the same performance for broadband Internet connections, you may see some differences for other network tasks. With a maximum throughput of 12 Mbps, USB is slower than Fast Ethernet. Moreover, if you have other USB devices on your chain, you are sharing the bandwidth and causing possible slow-downs when, for example, you send a job to a USB printer while accessing a file from another PC. On the other hand, many Ethernet products are based on switching technology, which means each node or device on the network is guaranteed either 10 or 100 Mbps of bandwidth.

• Cost. Because USB and Ethernet are fairly comparable in performance and complexity, you might think you could use cost to determine which technology you should choose. Unfortunately, this isn't likely to help. A large online reseller we found sells a standard 10/100 Mbps Ethernet adapter from a major vendor like 3Com for around US$70, with a comparable adapter from a smaller vendor running around $50. An Ethernet hub or a switch, which you'll also need, will run $120 or $150, respectively, for eight-port 10/100-Mbps units. Cable price varies, depending on whether you choose to run wiring in the walls and install jacks or simply run a prefab piece behind your desk. A 50-foot prefab cable will run about $20.

  Your best bet is to purchase a network starter kit. A variety of such packages are available from vendors such as D-link, Intel, NetGear, and 3Com, and they include everything you need to connect two PCs together and start sharing resources. As we've noted in previous testing, most kits include excellent documentation to help the novice user. You can expect to pay around $150 to $200 for this kind of solution.

  USB is actually a little less expensive, and you can expect to pay approximately $50 for a 10/100 Mbps USB-to-Ethernet converter. If you go this route, though, note that you'll still need a hub or switch and Ethernet cable, so in the end the price will be about the same.

Connecting to the Internet
DSL and cable connections are generally based on a single adapter installed in your PC. In order to share that connection with other PCs, you need some kind of Internet-sharing software or device. Fortunately, software that allows you to share a single Internet connection with other PCs on the network is included in Windows 98 and 2000. The setup for sharing any dial-up net working connection is fairly easy using the Internet Connection Wizard (ICW, see Figure 1). Go to Internet Tools under Accessories in the Start menu. In the ICW, choose to set up the connection manually.

For broadband, the best solution is to use an external broadband router that allows multiple connections on the LAN. In our tests, all we had to do was to configure the Network applet in Control Panel to use the IP address of the router as a gateway. This provides a measure of security as well. Unlike dial-up connections, where your IP address changes each time you connect, broadband connections are always on and your IP address never changes. This is a serious potential security problem: Intruders can learn your address and wreak havoc on your system. With a router, outside systems see only the router's IP address; your PCs are thus protected.

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