SolveYourProblem
eLearning Series
Wireless Networking
What
is Wireless Networking?
by Jeff Cohen
Wireless networking
is just what it sounds like. It’s a way of creating networks
without any wires! If this sounds exciting to you, then read
on.
With a wireless
network, you can create radio connections between computers
that let them communicate and connect to the Internet without
you having to go through all the trouble of connecting them
with wires. The computers don't even need to have a clear
path for the signal, as the wireless signal can go through
walls and between floors easily.
Where
Did It Come From?
The story of wireless
networking is a rather strange one. It is basically an application
of a technology called frequency hopping which was, believe
it or not, invented by the actress Hedy Lamarr and a musician
named George Antheil, back in the 1940s. Seriously, do a
web search -- I promise I'm not pulling your leg here.
They received
a patent for their invention, which was intended to help
in the war effort. Hedy was Jewish, but had been made to
hide it and socialize with Hitler as a young woman -- she
had to drug her husband and run away to London to escape
her native Austria. The importance of what they'd done, however,
wasn't recognized until many years later.
The U.S. military
adopted the technique in the '60s, using it during the Cuban
Missile Crisis. Hedy never saw any money from it as the patent
had expired (don't worry, she was a film star!), but she
was given a Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
in 1997, three years before her death.
Wireless
at Home
When most people
talk about wireless networks, they are talking about wireless
LANs (local area networks). A local area network doesn't
mean that it covers your whole neighborhood - the 'local
area' in question can be only one building, such as your
house. So if you want wireless networking in your home, you
want a wireless LAN.
Once people have
wireless in their home, they always seem to act as if there's
been an absolute miracle. After years of drilling holes in
the walls and running wires all over the place, suddenly
seeing them gone is really amazing.
The Myths
Wireless networking
is expensive. Well, wireless networking used to be expensive
when it was new, but now the prices have come way down thanks
to competition and mass production. There are hundreds of
manufacturers of wireless equipment, with something for every
budget. Your costs will depend on how many computers you
want to connect and how far apart they are, but a typical
family should still be able to do it for less than $100 overall.
If you're willing to leave one of the computers on whenever
you're using the other one, you could do it for as little
as $20! Best of all, once you've spend the money, there's
nothing more to pay after that.
Wireless networking
is hard. Again, this myth is a holdover from the early days
of wireless. It used to be very difficult, with you needing
to fiddle endlessly with the configuration on each computer
just to get the simplest things to work. Now, though, MS
Windows supports wireless out of the box, and setting it
up is easier than ever. You can usually plug in what you've
bought, put the CD in the computer and then sit back and
watch it all work perfectly!
Wireless networking
is insecure. You might think it's dangerous to have all your
personal data floating around in the air for anyone to read.
Well, if you want, it's dead easy to enable encryption for
your wireless signals. It's already difficult for outsiders
to intercept wireless signals at all, and they certainly
won't be able to decode them as well.
Not Just
at Home
It was home users
that were quickest to adopt wireless technology, willing
to pay any amount to finally be free of needing to run wires
all over their house. Since then, though, the technology
has started to spread to offices, universities, and all sorts
of other places.
Chains of coffee
shops and cafes have found that their customers will stay
for hours if they offer wireless Internet access, and it's
also becoming more common in hotels and airports. This means
that once you set up a laptop for wireless, it becomes far
more portable than it ever was before.
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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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