Regardless of type, all LANs require special hardware. The usual parallel and serial ports that come with personal computers are not fast enough for most uses on a LAN. In addition to LANs based on Ethernet hardware, in which data is broken up into small "packets" for transmission, including Twisted Pair Ethernet, Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps vs only 10 Mbps for regular Ethernets), and Gigabit Ethernet, there are "token passing" networks such as Token Ring and FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface), and "cell relay" networks such as ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Model). Ethernet, Token Ring, and FDDI are all "baseband" networks -- the wires carry only one signal (aka channel) at a time.
ATM, which is part of B-ISDN (Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network), on the other hand, is "broadband", in which a single wire can carry multiple channels simultaneously.

All types of networks differ, of course, in cost and speed, and in necessary software and hardware. Once a desktop computer has an appropriate network card installed, it can be connected to other computers through cables, hubs, and routers, so that the information can flow from one to another as quickly as possible.

Commonly, "LAN hardware" also includes dedicated machines like file or print servers, which provide LAN services to really make the network a LAN.

You can use power-line networking, wireless networking and phone-line networking. At the moment, wireless networking appears to be the easiest and one of the least expensive options. You can buy an 802.11b or 802.11g access point, connect it to your cable modem or DSL modem in a few minutes, and have all your computers talking on a network very quickly.

You can connect your home computers in a variety of ways:

• "Officially" wire your house with data cables by hiding all the network cable in the walls
• Run cables across the floor between computers in the same room
• Install some form of wireless networking
• Link your computers through your power lines
• Link your computers through your phone lines