Wireless Networking Basics

Wireless networking lets you surf the world wide web or connect to a network without the tangling wires. For example, one could access the Internet in her kitchen, when the Internet connection, connected to a router, is in the basement. Thus helping you to view a recipe on the Internet, while you cook. Or you can chat with your best friend though an instant messaging (IM) application, while you are taking rest in your backyard. One can also transfer files between computers via the wireless network, instead of using a USB flash drives. For using all these advantages of wireless technology, you need to be aware of the wireless networking basics.

Wireless Networking Hardware

To learn about the basics of wireless networking, one should know about the wireless networking hardware. Wireless networking requires a hub or a switch, router and other such equipments. You will also need a network adapter also known as a Network Interface Card (NIC) and a wireless antenna or a signal booster. The NIC can be connected to the computer through a PCI or USB. Nowadays, the NIC are pre-embedded in laptops or desktops. A network adapter uses radio transmission in order to communicate.

You will also need a wireless router for sharing a dial-up Internet connection or a broadband Internet connection, to the computers in the wireless network, that's connected through the modem. Instead of a router, you could also use a wireless access point, consisting an internal or external antenna, which is also termed as a base station. If you use a router or an access point, your network is scalable, which means, you can connect a number of computers to the network.

Wireless Networking Uses

You can connect laptop computers, desktop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) using such wireless networks, irrespective of any operating systems like Windows, Macintosh or Linux. You can also build a network for advanced uses, such as gaming over it. You can also connect a video game console such as Xbox or PlayStation to it.

The network signal should be strong, for good connectivity. Sometimes, the computers in the local area network (LAN) can communicate with each other, but cannot access web-sites on the Internet.

A wireless network does not need cables unlike a wired network, but a wireless network is much slower than a wired network. The difference is especially noticeable when you download a file in a peer-to-peer network, or while playing a multi-player online game.

Wireless Networking Security

When using a wireless network, you should know how to secure a wireless network, to protect the privacy of your data. Hackers find it easy to attack unsecured wireless networks. They can even hack into your e-mail account, and read the emails you receive.

It is possible for your neighbor to piggyback on your wireless network, if he is within the range of your signal. One way to secure the wireless network is by using Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). WEP uses complicated cryptography to encrypt the data sent to and fro through the network.

You can setup a wireless LAN (WLAN) by installing all the necessary equipments, in order to get it running. It can be quite expensive to setup a wireless network. Wireless network hardware is quite user-friendly, so it is also easy to install the network. Wireless networks usually adhere to the IEEE 802.11 standard. If you want to be aware of the wireless networking basics, you should also know that there are many amendments to the 802.11 standard, such as 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g.