Home Network Set Up Questions?

[Inferius]

So I recently moved to a new place, and wanted to get into networking a little bit more than I usually would. The basic set up I have is a modem (this modem doesn't broadcast wireless signal) etherneted to a router (which broadcasts wireless signal and is the home's primary source of Wi-Fi, and covers the property just fine) the residents living at the home connect to the WPA-2 secured Wi-Fi with say their phones or laptops, and both me and my roomate's desktop computer's are connected to the router via ethernet. Other devices I have connected to the Wi-Fi are the Wii-U and Chromecast. There are no servers or anything like that, everything is pretty basic in setup. However, I want to optimize things a bit. If we ever have guests over, I want them to be able to connect their phones or devices to the network without having to give them a password, while still maintaining some degree of integral security. Would having an open access point connected via powerline (speed isn't super important for this theoretical access point) be a viable solution (and recommended access point models)? If not, what would? That's my primary question, but another question I have is what's exactly the use of Switches? I understand their concept for the most part, but would just want some examples of uses. On the similar note, would implementing switches in my set up be beneficial at all? If so where and how? Thanks for any help, and sorry if terms are jumbled or anything, I'm rather new to the networking world.

[Luc401]

You would most likely need an AP and setup a guest network for that.

[dlink377]

The easiest one is enable guest network on your router. It has separate wifi ssid, password, and network. Your guest network cannot access any of your local network, just their own network subnet.

 

If your router doesn't support guest network, you can just buy one cheap wireless router and connect it to your existing wireless router. You can set separate wireless network and network easily. Guest network should not be able to connect to your local network.

 

But on my experience, it is kinda not really nice to have separate network to your guest. It gives impression that you don't believe them on your main network. Should not be a big problem, but that is what few of my close friend told to me, nothing really serious, just a slight first impression.

[Pesukarhu]

7 minutes ago, Inferius said:

That's my primary question, but another question I have is what's exactly the use of Switches? I understand their concept for the most part, but would just want some examples of uses. On the similar note, would implementing switches in my set up be beneficial at all? If so where and how?

Switches are useful if you already have a router, and just want more ports. Very useful in a entertainment center, where you have multiple devices that need internet. Basically any situation where you need two or more ports and it is far away from the router. (one cable to router, extra ports at the switch)

[Inferius]

14 minutes ago, dlink377 said:

The easiest one is enable guest network on your router. It has separate wifi ssid, password, and network. Your guest network cannot access any of your local network, just their own network subnet.

 

If your router doesn't support guest network, you can just buy one cheap wireless router and connect it to your existing wireless router. You can set separate wireless network and network easily. Guest network should not be able to connect to your local network.

 

But on my experience, it is kinda not really nice to have separate network to your guest. It gives impression that you don't believe them on your main network. Should not be a big problem, but that is what few of my close friend told to me, nothing really serious, just a slight first impression.

I'll be honest and say none of the guests we have over know enough to be a security risk or anything like that. This is more for just an ease of life type thing so they can just easily connect to the Wi-Fi. I worded with security in mind just so say an unwanted random individual connects to the open point and didn't want that theoretical person be able to damage the main network or anything.

[Inferius]

18 minutes ago, dlink377 said:

The easiest one is enable guest network on your router. It has separate wifi ssid, password, and network. Your guest network cannot access any of your local network, just their own network subnet.

 

If your router doesn't support guest network, you can just buy one cheap wireless router and connect it to your existing wireless router. You can set separate wireless network and network easily. Guest network should not be able to connect to your local network.

 

But on my experience, it is kinda not really nice to have separate network to your guest. It gives impression that you don't believe them on your main network. Should not be a big problem, but that is what few of my close friend told to me, nothing really serious, just a slight first impression.

And also sorry for the double reply, but would having the router a broadcast a guest network impact signal at all? Or say I go the access point and powerline route, would that create less disturbance for the signal? Assuming it's setup properly? I only ask this because say my router doesn't support guest network.

[dlink377]

19 hours ago, Inferius said:

And also sorry for the double reply, but would having the router a broadcast a guest network impact signal at all? Or say I go the access point and powerline route, would that create less disturbance for the signal? Assuming it's setup properly? I only ask this because say my router doesn't support guest network.

If you enable guest network on your router, there is small impact on wireless performance. Personally, my internet is not fast at all, so it is practically unnoticeable, and guest only be there for few hours, so it will not cause any noticeable performance slowdown.

 

You can separate the wireless signal channel for each router if you don't want any disturbance, or place the router a bit far.

 

I don't think no need to buy powerline kit just for this, channel separation should be enough. Any cheap wireless router will also do the job.