Wired homes are Faster:Wired lines can reach 1000 Mbps in speed, whereas wireless homes tend to be in the 10 Mbps and soon 100 Mbps range. Both wireless and wired technologies are getting faster and faster, but wired will always be ahead.

More reliable: Wireless signals are prone to interference and fluctuations; wired connections typically are more stable and reliable.

More secure: You don’t have to worry about your signals traveling through the air and being intercepted by snoopers, like with unsecured wireless systems.

Economical over the long term: The incremental cost of adding Cat 5e voice and data cabling and RG-6 coaxial cabling into your house — over a 30-year mortgage — will be almost nothing each month.

Salable: More and more homebuyers are not only looking for well-wired homes but are discounting homes without the infrastructure. As good as wireless is, it is not affixed to the house and is carried with you when you leave. Most new homes have structure wiring in the walls. If you’re building a new home or renovating an old one, we absolutely recommend that you consider running the latest wiring in the walls to each of your rooms. That doesn’t mean that you won’t have a wireless network in your home — you will. It just will be different than if you were wholly reliant on wireless for your networking.

If you choose to use network cable, it should ideally be installed in the walls, just like electrical and phone wiring. Network jacks (outlets) are installed in the walls in rooms where you would expect to use a computer. Connecting your computer to a wired network is just as easy as plugging a phone into a phone jack — after the wiring is in place, that is. Without question, the most economical time to install network cable in a home is during the home’s initial construction. In upscale neighborhoods, especially in communities near high-tech businesses, builders often wire new homes with network cable as a matter of course. In most cases, however, installation of network cable in a new home is an option or upgrade that’s installed only if the new owner orders it and pays a premium. Installing a structured wiring solution for a home can cost at least $2,000–$3,000, and that’s for starters.

Dialup modem: A device that connects to the Internet by dialing an Internet service provider (ISP), such as America Online (AOL) or EarthLink, over a standard phone line.

Cable modem: Modems that connect to the Internet through the same cable as cable TV. Cable modems connect to the Internet at much higher speeds than dialup modems and can be left connected to the Internet all day, every day.

DSL modem: Digital subscriber line modems do use your phone line, but they permit the phone to be free for other purposes — voice calls, faxes, and so on — even while the DSL modem is in use. DSL modems also connect to the Internet at much higher speeds than dialup modems and can be left connected 24x7.

Satellite modem: Satellite modems tie into your satellite dish and give you two-way communications even if you’re in the middle of the woods. Although they’re typically not as fast as cable modems and DSL links, they are better than dialup and available just about anywhere in the continental United States.

If you’re networking an existing home or are renting your home, wireless has fabulous benefits:

Portable: You can take your computing device anywhere in the house and be on the network. Even if you have a huge house, you can interconnect wireless access points to have a whole home wireless network.If you’re networking an existing home or are renting your home, wireless has fabulous benefits:

Flexible: You’re not limited to where a jack is on the wall; you can network anywhere.

Cost effective: You can start wireless networking for a couple of hundred dollars. Your wiring contractor can’t do much with that!

Clean: You won’t have to tear down walls or trip over wires when they come out from underneath the carpeting.

What’s more, there’s really no difference how you use your networked computer, whether it’s connected to the network by a cable or by a wireless networking device. Whether you’re sharing files, a printer, your entertainment system, or the Internet over the network, the procedures are the same on a wireless network as on a wired network. In fact, you can mix wired and wireless network equipment on the same network with no change in how you use a computer on the network.

Time for the fine print. We’d be remiss if we weren’t candid and mention any potential drawbacks to wireless networks compared with wired networks. The possible drawbacks fall into four categories:

Data speed: Wireless networking equipment does transmit data at slower speeds than wired networking equipment. Wired networks are already networking at gigabit speeds, although the fastest wireless networking standards (in the best situations) tops out at 54 Mbps. (Some vendors have proprietary extensions that will take the speed higher, but even these top out at a little more than 100 Mbps in the best scenarios.) But for almost all the uses that we can think of now, this is plenty fast. Your Internet connection probably doesn’t exceed a few Mbps in speed, so your wireless connection should be more than fast enough.

Radio signal range: Wireless signals fade when you move away from the source. Some homes, especially older homes, might be built from materials that tend to block the radio signals used by wireless networking equipment, causing even faster signal degradation. If your home has plaster walls that contain a wire mesh, the wireless networking equipment’s radio signal might not reach all points in your home. Most modern construction, however, uses drywall materials that reduce the radio signal only slightly. As a result, most homeowners can reach all points in their home with one centralized wireless access point (also called a base station) and one wireless device in or attached to each personal computer. And if you need better coverage, you can just add another access point.

Radio signal interference: The most common type of wireless networking technology uses a radio frequency that’s also used by other home devices, such as microwave ovens and portable telephones. Some home wireless network users, as a consequence, experience network problems (the network slows down or the signal is dropped) caused by radio signal interference.

Security: The radio signal from a wireless network doesn’t stop at the outside wall of your home. A neighbor or even a total stranger could access your network from an adjoining property or from the street unless you implement some type of security technology to prevent unauthorized access. To prevent unauthorized access, you can safeguard yourself with security technology that comes standard with the most popular home wireless networking technology. However, it’s not bulletproof, and it certainly won’t work if you don’t turn it on.