Networking Assignment: Employing The Wireless Communication Techniques For Home Office

Question

Task:
Case Study: Home office
Under doctor's orders for more bed rest, Jan received authorization from her employer to work from home during and immediately after her pregnancy. However, to do her job effectively, she routinely needs to retrieve large files from the corporate local area network (LAN), modify them, and return them to another location on the LAN. She also occasionally likes to print something for convenience or record keeping, and she needs convenient access to a telephone. Jan has received instructions from her company's Information Technology (IT) staff regarding how to connect to the corporate LAN. Jan currently has broadband access to her home. However, the only access is to a PC in a family room in the home's finished basement. Jan's family uses this PC for Internet access, online gaming, and as a resource for school projects. The PC is connected to a colour printer. Jan wants to create a home office in an unused upstairs bedroom. During the later stages of her pregnancy, she wants the convenience of working from more comfortable locations, such as her couch or bed. She already has a cordless phone and is planning to purchase a laptop PC and perhaps a second printer. However, a quick call to her broadband provider has caused her to question the financial feasibility of running new wiring for broadband access in other locations of her home. Perplexed with her problem, Jan talks to some of her co-workers, and one of them mentions wireless. Jan does a little investigation of the wireless LAN products available and decides many of the products are within her budget.

The scope of Jan’s solution will be limited by the fact that she already has broadband access installed in her home. She also has instructions for connecting to the corporate LAN. However, she has not checked to see if the wireless home network will affect these instructions. Jan's challenge is that she needs reliable high-speed access to the corporate LAN from the new home office and other convenient locations in the house. She wants to interfere as little as possible with use of the PC in the family room, and she needs her laptop to be inaccessible from the family PC. She would like to have printing capability in the home office. However, her solution must fit within a limited budget. Finally, all equipment that she uses for her solution must be immediately available.

Networking Assignment Task: The proposed solution must consider the following requirements:

• Any locations where she wants to use the laptop should not be more than 100 meters (over 300 feet) away from the access point
• Interference which may be caused by the cordless phone and microwave
• The home network should be cost efficient
• The network needs to be secure
• Other users on the home network

Answer

Introduction
The report on networking assignment will design a wireless network which is a computer network and it is not connected by cables. The wireless network can help Jan to build a home office with less cost and high-speed, who is a pregnant woman and currently get authorization from her company to work from home. The report will also describe the hardware requirement and network component to build a home office for Jan. Finally, the report will critically analyze the channels of communication and transmission techniques which is used by the wireless device.

Elaboration of the system
The home office is very much essential for Jan because during the later stage of Jan’s pregnancy she can work more comfortably from home office as well as the bed or couch. By using the home office Jan can ensure the safety of herself and work moreeffectively [1]. Jan already has a broadband connection by which her family can access the internet, play online games, and uses internet resources for making projects. The scope of the new wireless installation is limited in Jan’s house because broadband is already connected to her house. But by using the wireless network, Jan can connect with the corporate office from home more effectively and use internet resources from all corners of her house without using the cables. The wireless network can work properly within the 100-meter range and sometimes it develops interference due to the microwave or cordless.

Therefore, the combination of a home office with a wireless network can meet the requirements of the Jan. By using the wireless network, Jan can do her effectively, retrieve and modify the large files from the corporate LAN and send them to another LAN [2]. She also can print something, get access tothe telephone from the bed or couch by using the wireless network. The wireless network has lots of characteristics such as expandability, accessibility, mobility, and guest access that can able to increase the reliability of Jan’s home office. Due to the wireless network requires less cable, so the chance of cable fault decreases. Therefore, in the wireless network, the chances of the system breakdown are decreased. Moreover, the wireless network is an effective solution for the Jan home office.

Design
The following figure shows the design of Jan’s home office:

Figure: Jan’s Home office
Source: created by the learner

In order to design a wireless network in Jan’s home office, various hardware components such as printers, routers, laptops, switches, and servers are required [3]. The required hardware components are described in the below table:

The hardware components are used to create a secure wireless network in Jan’s house. The design can be further modified depending on the requirement. Moreover, this design meets Jan’s requirement to do corporate work.

Critical analysis of communication channels and transmission techniques
In this report, radio wave, microwave, infrared, and satellite signal is used as a communication channel, that is used to convey an information signal [6]. No physical wire is used to communicate in this design, the whole communication is donewithout the use of any cable. Radio transmission technologies are used in this design and it does not require any line of sight for propagation [4]. The radio frequency also does not block by objects like trees or buildings. It also covers more areas than the other transmission technology and the data rate is high in this technology. Moreover, the radio wave has been used as communication channels and radio transmission technologies have been used by the wireless device.

Limitations of the wireless network

• The wireless network cannot be used more than 100 meters away from the access point.
• The home wireless network is costly because the cost of the hardware component is high.
• The speed of the wireless network is a bit slower than the wired devices [5].
• The setup of the wireless network is difficult.

Conclusion
This report has been described as the importance of wireless networks in Jan’s home office. The wireless network has been designed in such a way, that Jan can use her laptop from the home office as well as the bed or couch. Other family members of Jan’s house can also able access the internet by using the wireless network. Moreover, the wireless network is an effective solution for Jan’s home office.

References
[1]M. Vela, J. Kraus, S. Friedman, M. Irizarry and P. Suman, "Estimating the effect of network element events in a wireless network", EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, vol. 2018, no. 1, 2018. Available: 10.1186/s13638-018-1098-1.

[2]M. Rapport, "Home Office and Exercise Space Growing in Demand, Especially Office Space", Millionacres, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.fool.com/millionacres/real-estate-market/articles/home-office-and-exercise-space-growing-in-demand-especially-office-space/. [Accessed: 25- Aug- 2020].

[3]D.Mareco, "7 Must-Follow Guidelines for a Better Wireless Network Design", Securedgenetworks.com, 2020. [Online]. Networking assignment Available: https://www.securedgenetworks.com/blog/7-Must-Follow-Guidelines-for-a-Better-Wireless-Network-Design. [Accessed: 25- Aug- 2020].

[4]|, "Types of Transmission Technology", Ecomputernotes.com, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://ecomputernotes.com/computernetworkingnotes/computer-network/transmission-technology. [Accessed: 25- Aug- 2020].

[5]"Limitations of a Wireless Network Connection", Snabay Networking, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://snabaynetworking.com/limitations-of-a-wireless-network/. [Accessed: 25- Aug- 2020].

[6]e. notes, "Wi-Fi Channels, Frequency Bands & Bandwidth » Electronics Notes", Electronics-notes.com, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/connectivity/wifi-ieee-802-11/channels-frequencies-bands-bandwidth.php. [Accessed: 25- Aug- 2020].