Beating the Wireless Blues.

DES Moines (Iowa); IOWA; UNITED States

Harold Martin, a tech support specialist with a Des Moines, Iowa Internet service provider, started having problems a few weeks after creating his wireless network. He installed NetStumbler on his laptop, an application he hoped would help him diagnose the problem. In the end, his connection was restored when Martin enabled the Wireless Zero Configuration service, a part of Windows XP that his wireless card software had disabled. With 4.5 million households in the U.S. going wireless, the benefits of Wi-Fi are hard to ignore, as are the problems one might encounter. Besides conflict with Windows software, wireless networking hardware can fail or have bugs. In its tests, the Wi-Fi Alliance determine that a computer's wireless card can talk to a gateway situated 40 to 60 feet away within a home, and 60 to 80 feet away in an office. With the help of NetStumbler, you can temporarily turn your laptop into a slick Wi-Fi signal analysis device that scans the frequencies used by Wi-Fi devices. The term zero configuration implies an easy setup, but with the Windows XP Wireless Zero Configuration service, that frequently is not the case. A way to extend the reach of your wireless network is to use a HomePlug product, which routes data over power lines.