Wireless networks work using radio waves instead of wires to transmit
data between computers. That's the simple version. The big advantage of
WiFi is its simplicity. You can connect computers anywhere in your home
or office without the need for wires. The computers connect to the
network using radio signals, and computers can be up to 100 feet or so
apart. If you're curious to know what's going on in more detail, then
read on, it's all explained in this article.
Ones and Zeros
I'm sure you know that computers transmit data digitally, using binary:
ones and zeros. This is a way of communicating that translates very
well to radio waves, since the computer can transmit ones and zeros as
different kinds of beep. These beeps are so fast that they're outside a
human's hearing range -- radio waves that you can't hear are, in fact,
all around you all the time. That doesn't stop a computer from using
them, though.
Morse Code
The way it works is a lot like Morse code. You probably already know
that Morse code is a way of representing the alphabet so that it can be
transmitted over radio using a dot (short beep) and a dash (long dash).
It was used manually for years, and became a great way of getting
information from one place to another with the invention of the
telegraph. More importantly for this example, though, it is a binary
system, just like a computer's ones and zeros.
You might think of wireless networking, then, as being like Morse code
for computers. You plug a combined radio receiver and transmitter in,
and the computer is able to send out its equivalent of dots and dashes
(bits, in computer-speak) to get your data from one place to another.
All About Frequencies
You might wonder, though, how the computer could possibly transmit
enough bits to send and receive data at the speed it does. After all,
there must be a limit on how much can be sent in a second before it
just becomes useless nonsense, right? Well, yes, but the key to
wireless networking is that it gets around this problem.
First of all, wireless transmissions are sent at very high frequencies,
meaning that more data can be sent per second. Most wireless
connections use a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz (2.4 billion cycles per
second) -- a similar frequency to mobile phones and microwave ovens. As
you might know, though, a frequency this high means that the wavelength
must be very short, which is why wireless networking only works over a
limited area.
In addition, wireless networks make use of a technique known as
'frequency hopping'. They use dozens of frequencies in the range they
are given, and constantly switch between them. This makes wireless
networks more immune to interference from other radio signals than they
would be if they only transmitted on one frequency.
Access Points
The final step is when it comes to all the computers on a network
sharing Internet access. This is done using a special piece of wireless
equipment called an access point. Access points are more expensive than
wireless cards for one computer, as they contain radios that are
capable of talking to around 100 computers at the same time, and
sharing out access to the Internet between them. Dedicated access
points are only really essential for larger networks, though -- if you
only have a few computers, it is possible to use one of them as the
access point, or you could just get a wireless router.
They Understand Each Other
That's all well and good, then, but how does wireless equipment made by
entirely different companies manage to work together when this is all
so complicated? Well, the answer is that there are standards that all
wireless devices follow. These standards are technically called the
802.11 standards, and are set by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers). It is thanks to people sticking to their
standards that wireless networking is so easy and cheap to use today.
You Don't Need to Worry
If all this talk of frequencies has you a little worried, you don't
need to be -- wireless networking hardware and software handles all of
this automatically, without you needing to do a thing. Don't think that
you're going to have to tell one wireless device what frequency another
is using, because it's just not going to happen, alright? Wireless
networking, for all its complicated workings, is really far more simple
to use than you'd ever expect.
Original Source:
Articles Galore.com
Information supplied and written by Lee Asher of
CyberTech SoftShop
Suppliers of the DeadEasy Ebook Maker and
Publishing Wizard.
