Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the concepts and methods of extending networking to the home or small office/home office (SOHO) environment. This involves dial-up networking that entails using the telephone system to dial into a network, dedicated, “always on” connections via digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable services, and home-based local area networks (LANs). Dial-up networking refers to a network connection that is established by “dialing” into the network through the public telephone system. Dial-up connections can be analog or digital. Analog connections involve the use of a modem; digital connections require end-to-end digital connectivity. These are generally classified as either terminal- or network-based that makes the local system a terminal of the remote machine. This type of connection is sometimes called a tty connection, which is an acronym for “teletype,” a term used in the early days of computing to denote a terminal connection between a device and a centralized host. In a tty dial-up connection, terminal emulation software is used to make the local system appear as a terminal to a centralized host. In a network dial-up connection, special networking software makes the local machine become a true-networked host. A network dial-up connection transforms the local machine into a networked node and provides it with the same capabilities of any other networked node exactly as if it were directly connected to a LAN.