Wireless network

The last decade has seen a quantum jump in the advancement of science and technology. With the advent of the microchip, robotics and wireless technology has made space travel much easier and beneficial. Microchip computer technology has introduced several wireless features, the most prominent being wireless networking. Wireless networking is being increasingly used in laptop notebooks.

Wireless Networking

Any technology that can connect two or more computers, desktop or notebooks using standard network protocols without any 'wires' or network cabling is known as wireless networking. Currently, wireless networking usually signifies wireless LANs. With the introduction of cross-vendor industry standards, like IEEE 802.11, wireless networking is increasingly being used. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) developed the standard 802.11 which defined the technology dealing with data transmission via radio frequencies. This standard is also called as WiFi (Wireless Fidelity). This standard does not specify two different methods, namely, Frequency Hopping (FH), and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS or DS) for wireless communications. The older standard defined speeds of 1mbps and 2mbps but the newer standards specify speeds of 11mbps and 55mbps. The two WiFi standards currently in use are the 802.11b (11mbps) and 802.11g (55 mbps).

Advantages of wireless networking

Accessible wherever you travel with your laptop. Wireless technology allows information to travel over the air; hence, it is accessible wherever you go, whenever you want it.
Easy to set up. You just need a wireless networking network card and the appropriate software to enable it.
They are unobtrusive. There are no wires, no external connections required. The computer's wireless adapter changes binary data into radio signal that is transmitted using an antenna with frequencies of 2.4 GHz or 5GHz. A wireless router receives the signal, decodes it, and sends to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection. From the Internet, the other computer receives it via it's wireless antenna and Internet connection, decodes the radio signal into computer binary data with the computer's wireless adapter and gets the information as it was sent.

Wireless adapters can plug into a laptop through the PC card slot or USB port. Most new wireless laptops come with built-in wireless transmitters thereby eliminating the use of plugging wireless adapters.

Kinds of wireless network

There are two kinds of wireless networks being used in notebook computers. An ad-hod or peer-to-peer networking and using access point or base station acting like a hub.

An ad-hoc or peer-to-peer networking. Every computer can connect to each wireless enabled computer. Each computer has a wireless networking interface card. They can access wired LAN using a bridge.
Using an access point, or base station in a wireless network. This access point acts like a hub connecting all the other computers. It can also act as a bridge between the wireless LAN to a wired LAN. Resources such as file servers, printers, scanners, Internet connectivity can be easily shared. There are two types of access points, namely, hardware access points (HAP) and software access points.

Hardware access points. Hardware access points can provide comprehensive support for wireless applications. Dedicated hardware access points exist in the market like Lucent's WaveLAN, Apple's Airport Base Station, and WebGear's AviatorPRO.
Software access points. These are software routers that are used as basic Software Access Points. Features such as direct PPPoE, extensive configuration flexibility, and file sharing using TCP/IP are supported. It can also act as a bridge between wired and wireless LANs connecting both the LANs with full support.

Range of the wireless network

Every manufacturer usually specifies both the indoor and outdoor ranges, which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Typical indoor ranges are 150-300 feet.
Typical outdoor ranges are up to 1000 feet.

Building interference, environmental changes can severely deteriorate the range. The range can be extended beyond the specified limit by using multiple access points or by a wireless relay/extension point.

Security with wireless networking

Anybody who has a wireless card can access your signal, hence to keep strangers out, security is important. Security can be maintained by the following methods:

Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP). Data is encrypted using 64-bit or 128-bit. WEP-enabled network has a WEP key, which is a password to enter the network; hence, without the password nobody can have access to the data.

WiFi Protected Access (WPA). This is a slight modification of WEP. WPA is a part of the 802.11i wireless network security protocol, using temporal key integrity protocol encryption. A password is required to enter.

Media Access Control (MAC). Here the address filtering is different from WEP or WPA. No passwords are required. Each computer has a unique MAC address and specific MAC addresses are allowed to access the network. Approved MAC addresses are added to the router. This method is very secure and prevents unwanted visitors in the network.