Small and home office

In computing and networking, a small and home office (SOHO) environment cannot be assumed to have technical staff, and also has other aspects that differentiate it from larger installations.

In many cases, all computers at the site will share a common subnet. In an Internet Protocol version 4 environment, the router that connects the site to a service provider is apt to use network address translation functionality, mapping the service provider address on the "outside" to the private address space (RFC 1918). The service provider may choose to use private address space internally to the provider network.

Depending on whether the service is provided by a telephone or cable company, the "set-top box" or other device that connects to the outside provider may have connectors for television and telephone service, in addition to a local area network. Often, a SOHO LAN will be wireless, given that a residence or office may not have any preplanned cable ducts or personnel qualified to run cables through walls and ceilings. Wireless networking also may lower the cost of the external interface device, by reducing the number of connectors needed for local hosts.

SOHO environments, especially when used for virtual private network connectivity to a business, have fairly strong security requirements, but again, no local personnel trained to manage security.