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Feature: A Technician’s Guide to Home Networks
Help Ease Customer Frustrations
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If you’re not teaching your broadband installers and technicians about home networking, you’re already behind in today’s competitive market.

Cable customers are much more data savvy than they were 10 years ago. It’s not uncommon for a broadband technician to arrive at a customer’s home to install a cable modem and discover a network with a hub, a router or even a server already installed.

Of course, most cable operators don’t support such home networks. They require that the technician simply tell the customers that they have to make the connection between the cable modem and the network themselves. In fact, in my own recent experience, the technician handed me the modem, the cable, the network interface card (NIC) and the work order, and said I had to do the install myself. This took me the better part of a day, because I was missing some essential network parameters.

But, wouldn’t it be nice if your technicians knew how the cable modem should be connected within a home network, and what role the different network components play? As the technicians are your directors of first impressions, it’s essential that they have a basic understanding of home networks so that they don’t appear completely intimidated. Plus, there is critical information they’ll need to provide so that the customer may complete the installation successfully. Let’s look at some common home network configurations.

What is a home network?

Internet and data are the fastest growing of all broadband services. More people are working from home, and more students are using computers for homework and research, not to mention online games. Not so long ago, a computer in the home was a luxury. We are now finding multiple computers in the home. But, customers still are reluctant to spend money unnecessarily. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on separate peripherals at each computer (like printers, scanners, CD-ROMs and even modems), they are finding that a low-cost alternative is a high-speed home network. The home network allows each user to share all the resources on the network.

The most basic home network requires two computers, each with a NIC, and a crossover network cable to connect them together.

In a simple home network, each computer and its devices will be connected to the network through the hub (see Figure 1). The hub simply passes all the network information to all of the computers. It is the job of the NIC to capture only the data designated for that particular computer. The computers on the network are all assigned a unique Internet protocol (IP) address. This address is used by the NIC at each computer to identify what data to capture and what data to ignore.

Every computer on the Internet, just like the home network, has a unique IP address which is used for routing. No two computers on a network or the Internet can have the same IP address because conflicts would occur. Certain blocks of IP addresses have been reserved for private networking and do not exist on the Internet. The most common for home use are 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.254.

With the home network, each computer still needs a telephone modem to access the Internet. Theoretically, all computers could share one 56K modem. In reality, the limited speed of the typical dial-up modem would be too slow to allow sharing.

The cable modem’s role

A cable modem provides a connection to the Internet through the local cable company. Most cable operators supply and support everything needed for one properly operating computer to access the Internet through the cable modem. Assuming all of the cable (RF) connections are made from the tap to the ground block, an additional coaxial line is installed to the computer. The cable modem is connected to the coaxial cable. A NIC is installed in the computer and connected to the cable modem by a twisted-pair cable with RJ-45 connectors on both ends. Installing the software completes the process. The software configures the computer for networking with a cable modem.

During this configuration process, the computer’s dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) functions are enabled. With DHCP turned on, the only information that needs to be entered is a host name (and in some cases, a domain name). The computer will then acquire all of the required parameters from the cable operator or Internet service provider (ISP) and configure itself. The software also includes a Web browser and associated Internet applications, plus help files.

Home networks meet cable modems

Most cable operators give their subscribers an option to connect additional computers to the cable modem for about $5.00 each per month. This option requires a home network (see Figure 2). The hub is connected directly to the cable modem and each additional computer is assigned an IP address by the cable company. Customers are allowed to connect up to three computers in this manner.

Some subscribers prefer not to pay the additional $5 a month, or they may need to connect more than three computers to the cable modem. Two options are available to them: dedicate one computer (a server) to act as a router (see Figure 3), or install a dedicated router (see Figure 4).

The server configuration requires the computer to be on all the time the home network is active because it serves as the interface or bridge between the home network and the wide area network (WAN) or Internet. Additionally, this computer needs two NICs, one to connect to the cable modem and the other to connect to the hub (home network). The hub then sends all data to all computers. Some may see this as a reduction in the overall speed of the network because all network traffic is sent to every point in the network, thus sharing the network capacity among all computers.

The router configuration is probably the better of the two options. A four-port router costs about $200, and does not need a hub because four computers may be connected directly to it. The router also is intelligent and "routes" data only to the destination computer. If a one-port router were installed, it would need to be connected to the home network through a hub. The router also may integrate firewall capabilities, which are an additional software cost with the server configuration.

On the Internet or wide area network (WAN) connection, the router takes on the identity of a computer, which the cable company has authorized for use with the cable modem. On the port connections (home network side), the router acts as a DHCP server and assigns IP addresses to the network computers connected to it.

Information requests from the user’s computer are routed through the server or router to the cable modem. The responses from the Internet are routed back from the cable modem through the server or router to the requesting computer.

After contacting several cable operators, it seems that all of the configurations discussed are allowed, but generally are not supported by technicians or customer service reps. That’s not surprising really, as a novice could go to Best Buy to purchase the equipment needed for a home network, not know how to install it, and spend hours on the phone with your call center trying to figure it out.

But, those customers will need information that the technician has in order to complete a cable modem install. Rather than implementing a totally hands-off policy regarding home networks, it would be beneficial to familiarize your technicians with the information they’ll need to give the customer. All of the information is the same as for a single computer install and includes: computer name, domain name, proxy server, mail server, news server and gateway.

While you may not yet be ready to support home networks, the growing proliferation of such networks makes it essential that broadband technicians can intelligently provide users with the network information they need to complete the modem install. And, it will enhance your customer service.

Tony Ghaffari is manager of applications engineering and training for C-COR.net. He may be reached .

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