Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity refers to a set of wireless networking technologies more specifically referred to as any type of 802.11 network, 802.11b and 802.11a, dual band. The word Wi-Fi was built by an organization called the Wi-Fi Alliance. They overlook tests that confirm the production.

A product that undergoes the alliance analyses is given the name “Wi-Fi certified”. In earlier times, the term “Wi-Fi” was used only in place of the 2.4 GHz 802.11b.standard. It rapidly gained in fame with access points across the Unites States.

These standards are generally in used around the world, and allow users that have Wifi capable device, like a laptop or PDA to connect anywhere there is available Wi-Fi access point.

There are three standards referred to signify the speed of connection. Both the 802.11a and 802.11b are the ones capable of 54 MBPS with 802.11a additional capabilities.

802.11b are the most common of the three standards because it can transmit at 11 Megabits per Second even though the faster WI-Fi standards are quickly changing it. However, all these Wi-Fi standards are fast enough to generally allow a broadband connection.

Wireless Fidelity is an appearing technology that will probably be as common as electric outlets and phone lines in a few years. It adds great levels of convenience and high level of production for workers whose offices have a Wi-Fi access.

It is intentionally planned to be use for wireless devices but is now often used for Internet access. You can connect computers anywhere, in or out your home or office without needing wires. They are just connected to the network that uses radio signals. Even travelers can progressively equip Wi-Fi in airports, coffee shops, Internet cafes, malls, and hotels around the world.

How does W-Fi work?

Wi-Fi is the wireless way to handle networking. Wi-Fi allocates a worldwide Internet connection to be transmitted through radio waves. Radio waves are the ones that make Wi-Fi run and exist. They permit Wi-Fi networking occurs between many people. These waves are transmitted from antennae and Wi-Fi receivers are picking them up. The moment a device receives signal within the range of a Wi-Fi network, an Internet connection is produced without a chord and with the use of a Wi-Fi card that reads the signal. The user will be incited with login screen and password if needed once the connection is established between the user and the network.

How secure is Wi-Fi?

Wi-Fi maintains and continues to have numerous security issues. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is used in the physical and data link layers. It was planned to provide wireless security by protecting the data while it travels from one point to the other. Contrasting with the wired LANs, their networks are usually inside the building.

Even if it is protected by wireless LANs, they are more exposed due to the fact that the data travels over radio waves which are much easier to capture. One of the reasons why WEP is vulnerable, some other corporations do not even change their shared keys for a long time. The keys are too long to be used. With that much time, the key can get into other hands and use it in a wrong motive, which could be disastrous for the corporation.

Router is a computer device that receives or forwards data packets to and from the Internet towards a destination in the process called routing. Router is the essential component of the computer networking that enables any sent data to arrive at the right destination.

As an illustration, imagine that the Internet is the world and one computer is one household. Other computers connected through the Internet are households around the world. Say one household will send a letter to another household in any part of the world. The letter has an address right? And that address would determine the destination of the letter. But without one reading the address, the letter would not arrive to the right receiver. The letter also would not be able to reach the intended receiver if there is not medium. This medium would be the courier. And the courier of the computer data is the router.

A router (broadband router) is also a device that enables two or more computer to receive data packets from the Internet under one IP address at the same time.

Remember that to be able to connect to the Internet, a computer must have an IP address unique from the rest of the computers. Therefore, every computer connected to the Internet has it own IP address. It is like having a fingerprint or ID as an access pass to be able to enter the web. With the presence of the router, this “fingerprint” or “ID” could be shared by two or more computer at the same time.

In simplest form, a router makes two or more computer use the Internet at the same with one access pass.

One more thing: a computer with cable modem could also be considered as a router. In this, the computer would do the process of routing like normal routers do. Other computers are then connected to the computer with Internet connection that would give it with the Internet connection. The computer with cable modem has the direct contact with the Internet and the ones connected to it are sharing the connection.

Why would anyone need a router?

For households with two or more computers who would want to have Internet connection to every computers they have, taking subscription for each would be too much. The solution is to buy a router that would enable every computer in the house to have an Internet connection. In the definition above, the broadband router would act as a hub to the existing Internet connection.

If the router is comparable to a hub, would it affect the Internet speed?

It should be taken into consideration that once a single Internet connection is divided, the connection speed is affected. But there are some broadband routers that would bring minimal slowdown to the Internet speed and the effect might not even be big.

Internet speed would also depend on the type of application used in a router. While some would inflict little effect on the speed like online games, others would terribly slowdown your connection and even hinder you to use the Internet at all.

Usually, offices use a more sophisticated router to redirect Internet connections to the large number of computers. These routers would give better data packeting compared to a typical router used at home that results to faster Internet speed.