Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part III: Installing a Wireless Network
• Your Domain Name System (DNS) or service, or server: This special
service within your ISP’s network translates domain names
into IP addresses. Domain names are the (relatively) plain English
names for computers attached to the Internet. The Internet however,
is based on IP addresses. For example, www.wiley.com is the
domain name of the Web server computers of our publisher. When
you type www.wiley.com into your Web browser address bar, the
DNS system sends back the proper IP address for your browser to
connect to.
• Whether your ISP is delivering all this to you via Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol (DHCP): In almost all cases, the Internet
service you get at home uses DHCP, which means that a server (or
computer) at your ISP’s network center automatically provides all
the information listed in the preceding bullet, without you needing
to enter anything manually. It’s a great thing!
In the vast majority of cases, your ISP does use DHCP, and you don’t
have to worry about any of this information. If your service is
Verizon’s FiOS, your ISP is delivering an Ethernet connection to a
firewall box that may or may not have wireless already built in.
Verizon gives you the access information to this box when it’s
installed, and you can find all the information about your network
connection from this box.
� Collect the physical address of the network card used in your computer
only if you’re already connected directly to a cable/DSL
modem. Many ISPs used to use the physical address as a security check
to ensure that the computer connecting to its network was the one
paying for the service. Because of this security check, many AP manufacturers
have added a feature called MAC address cloning to their
routers. MAC address cloning allows home users to pay for only one
connection from their ISP while having many devices able to get to the
Internet. Most AP and Internet access devices available today permit
you to change their physical addresses (Media Access Control [MAC]
addresses) to match the physical address of your computer’s existing
network card. How you do this varies from system to system, but typically
you’ll see a list of MAC addresses (in a pull-down menu) for all
devices connected to your AP. Simply select the MAC address you’re
looking to clone and click the button labeled Clone MAC address (or
something similar).
Because some providers still track individual machines by MAC address,
it’s best to be prepared by writing down the MAC address of your computer’s
NIC in case you need it. How will you know that your ISP is tracking
MAC addresses? Well, unfortunately, it’s not always obvious — you
might not see a big banner on the ISP’s Web site telling you that MAC
address tracking is in effect. But if you switch from a direct connection
to your PC to a Wi-Fi router connection and you can’t get online,
MAC address tracking may indeed be the issue. The first step in