A friend is remodeling his house, and will be wiring it for networking and setting up an extensive system. He asked for advice on hardware and configuration, and here it is…

First, start with a good router. I use the [1] D-Link DIR-655 and am quite happy with it. In addition to the wireless N, it also extends the range of regular wireless G. It also handles wired gigabit speeds, which is useful as we’ll see momentarily.

My router is in the basement. There are users on the second floor of my house - my wife and daughter. Both had complained in the past (continuously, it seemed) of dropped wireless signals. Since I added wireless N cards to their PCs, there have been no further complaints. And since it makes the G signal stronger as well, I am now able to use it anywhere in the house (I have not tried going outside the house yet - the sunlight tends to wash out the LCD displays). Right now I have three continuous wireless users - two desktop N units and one laptop with G. Several other laptops occasionally use the wireless. I use the 128-bit WPA encryption.

The wired side is a little more complicated. I started with a bunch of gigabit-capable Cat-6 cables. I also bought two gigabit network switches (one 8-port for me, one 4-port for my son). The router has 4 wired ports, so one cable goes from the router to the 8-port switch in my office, and one cable goes from the router to the 4-port switch in my son’s area. His switch has just three things attached - the xBox 360, his new Vista PC, and his old XP PC. The Vista box is the only one with a gigabit network adapter.

The 8-port switch has several computers connected, most of which are gigabit-capable. The noteworthy ones include the Windows Home Server and my Vista Media Center - they’re the major bandwidth hogs that benefit from the gigabit speeds.

I also have a regular Cat-5 cable running from the router to the living room upstairs, where we have a Media Center extender. I could have used wireless for the extender, but it seemed easier to just run the cable and enjoy more consistent bandwidth.

Since the xBox and the Extender both show video from the Media Center, I try to keep all of those paths as fast as possible, but I think the Extenders themselves are the only limiting factor (I don’t think either supports gigabit speeds).

So that’s basically it - fairly simple, yet it supports 6 users, 12 computers, and 2 extenders and it does so under fairly heavy use at all hours of the day. I think it made sense to get the best router I could, as it has handled everything we’ve thrown at it without a hiccup.