On my average daily dog-walk 50% of the homes I walk past have un-secured wireless, so in order to help you not be one of these statistics I’ve shared the two very simple steps below to help make your network more secure.

First, log onto your wireless router, most home routers will be on the default IP address of http://192.168.0.1 with username ‘admin’ and password ‘admin’ or ‘password’ unless you have changed it. If you have a managed router from O2, BT, Talk-Talk, Sky, etc then this will be written on the bottom of the wireless router or your ISP would have sent you a letter / email with these details.

2 very simple and easy steps to secure your wireless:
1. Encrypt it – Best to use WPA or WPA2 Encryption – but something is better than nothing!
2. Hide your SSID – this broadcasts your wireless identity, so if its hidden its less likely to be found.

2 very simple ways to keep your computer safe:
1. Turn on automatic updates – the updates include security updates and a fully up-to-date computer is less vulnerable to malicious exploitation.
2. Keep your Anti-Virus definitions up-to-date.

A few hints and tips for the more advanced:
These get more advance as we go on – nothing stopping most people implementing the first one or two.
1. Change the router default password – most are set to “password” or “admin”
2. Introduce MAC address control to authorise wireless clients
3. Change your wireless channel to one not being used by all of your neighbours – most wireless routers have a built-in site-survey tool – changing the channel will stop any interference.
4. Run multiple SSID’s if supported for your own / guest networks (also consider VLANs)
5. Change your network range and IP scope – everyone uses the default 192.168.0.0/16 subnet – consider 172.16.0.0/16 or 10.0.0.0/16 – advance users only.

MY FINAL TIP:
If you are worried about your wireless network and would like it more secure – then pay a local, trusted computer professional to do it for you – an hour of their time will be well worth the investment.

A great consumer product and it sounds very promising – but as an IT professional I worry about mixing business and consumer users on the same network – it’s got security, support and reliability risks written all over it!

Being a wireless (shared) network, I must admit would be reserved in joining my own home network to it, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t even contemplate joining any business-related infrastructure into such a network due to the following unanswered questions and risks:

1. Wireless security – what level of encryption security is being used – there is no mention on their website.
2. Network segmentation – are business and domestic traffic networks kept separate for security – if not, they should be!
3. Reliability – What are the stats here, I appreciate that ADSL doesn’t truly have an SLA, but most businesses ISP’s will give 99.5% uptime dependant on the access solution and provide failover solutions.
4. Throughput – wireless is a shared medium which is very susceptible to interference – it’s never as good as a piece of wire – but some live ‘real-life’ statistics wouldn’t go a miss.
5. IP & DNS restrictions – businesses like fixed IP addresses and DNS they can change – so they can communicate with the outside world (Mail, VPN, FTP, etc).
6. Support – Connectivity providers will need to provide reliably 24/7/365 service for business customers – the internet is now mission critical and businesses can’t afford to be without it.

Maybe Signal wish to think a little more on their “Office User Package” which is targeted at small or medium sized companies (most people define SME as 1-250 employees) – or drop it completely, concentrate on the domestic market where they are positioned quite well and let dedicated business ISP’s service corporate networks.

“When ADSL lines were limited to 2Mb/s, many people’s lines could reliably connect at that speed but where they couldn’t (due to line length or quality), the ISP would permanently limit the line speed to what was believed to be prudent. Since the introduction of ADSLMax, it will try to connect at as high a speed as possible based on the current conditions, up to 8Mb/s (the top speed of ADSL).

The speed achieved depends on the conditions of the line, which means that quality of lines has become more important. Line length is an important factor, but as you can’t move your home/office nearer the exchange you can still try to improve your local connections (wiring). In addition, if your line is quite short but connection speeds or reliability are lower than expected, it may be that BT or your ISPs street wiring could be improved.”

Please visit Mickey’s ADSL speed / quality guide here which will show you tips on how to improve your ADSL speeds.

To help you avoid speed problems and get the most from your connection, I advise all ADSL users to where possible, LEAVE YOUR ADSL MODEM / ROUTER SWITCHED ON (with exception to long periods of extended time away from your home – e.g. holiday).

Business customers and those running a permanent VPN link to their offices should ALWAYS leave there ADSL modem (internet connection) turned on.

How can turning your modem off and on cause issues?

Sorry, here’s the technical bit…In the first 10 days of an ADSL Max internet circuit initiating, it will be in “training mode” where it will automatic test your line for the best speed (both Upload and Download). During this 10-day period, you can experience vast differences in your internet download speeds – this is perfectly normal and is to be expected.

Once this 10-day period of uninterrupted service is complete, your internet will settle to a speed that guarantees the best possible quality of service for your line (this is dependant on many factors; your distance from the local BT telephone exchange is one).

Constant re-training of your internet connection can cause BT (who run the link from the local exchange to your house/business) to think that your line is experiencing speed issues, and trigger them taking evasive action. This means they may reduce / cap the bandwidth on your line in an attempt to achieve a stable connection, but if your modem is still being switched off/on regularly it will never finish it’s “training mode” and BT will keep lowering the bandwidth in a vain attempt to achieve stability – in extreme cases this could result in your connection being as slow as a dial-up connection.

It is therefore important that you keep your equipment on, both during the initial 10-day training period and beyond – this will prevent the service from re-training again.

Advice

Please keep your ADSL Modem switched on at all times.