[LINK] Dog ate my network

[Tom Worthington]

Visiting friends last week I was asked me to fix their home network. The 
broadband had stopped working on one PC and after checking the software, I 
traced the Ethernet cable back across the floor. Half way along I found 
where the dog had chewed through the cable. Splicing the cable fixed it for 
a day, but the dog liked the taste of the repair tape and chewed it again.

Wireless seemed a good option, but was unreliable in this household (and 
other I have tried it in. The wireless cards seem to suck the performance 
out of old PCs and have links drop out. Removing Microsoft networking seems 
to help, as does slowing down the wireless from 54Mbps to 2Mbps. This is 
still fast enough to relay data to the 512 kbps broadband modem and seems 
to make the link more robust. Why are wireless suppliers giving us more 
theoretical speed when we need something slower but which works reliably in 
a house full of fridges and cordless phones?



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au                PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
Visiting Fellow, Computer Science, Australian National University