With the advent of laptops, and later other mobile devices, the wires that traditionally connected PCs to the network began to interfere. A light laptop can be moved from place to place, but it is not very convenient to do when a network cable is attached to it . The idea of combining computers using radio waves in the manner of a radiotelephone became quite natural. The first developments of standards for wireless data transfer Wi-Fi.
Now this technology has firmly entered our lives, since anyone can make WiFi at home. It is so convenient to be able to quickly connect to the Internet from anywhere in the apartment, office, park or cafe. Modern Wi-Fi standards allow you to work on the network at a speed sufficient to listen to music and watch movies online. We can say that Wi-Fi wireless technologies give a person information freedom.
Making a Wi-Fi Network
To make a network, you need two types of equipment: a Wi-Fi access point and clients that will connect to the network. Clients can be laptops, PDAs, mobile devices that support Wi-Fi, as well as desktop computers that have an external or internal Wi-Fi adapter. An access point, as a rule, is a router that supports wireless networks, such as the D-Link DIR 300.
First you need to configure the router itself, since making WiFi at home with distribution to several clients will not work without it. The device must be connected to the computer using a twisted pair cable. To control this device, a web interface is used, which can be opened in a browser. If you are setting up for the first time, you can find the login and password in the documentation for the router, if not, then the owner of the device must know it.
When authorization is completed, the router management page will open, where you need to find the section on Wi-Fi. Here you can enable or disable the wireless connection, set the SSID of the network, which will help protect it from extraneous interference, as well as choose a traffic encryption method and a security key.
When Wi-Fi is configured on the router, you can begin to configure the client. As a rule, there is nothing complicated: if the wireless adapter works fine and the software is installed for it, then the list of available networks will be visible in the Network Control Center or in a special window on Windows XP. The discovery of a new network can usually be found in the Windows tray. After selecting a network from the list, you can connect to it by entering the SSID of the network and, depending on the encryption settings, a security key.
You may wonder how to make WiFi at home without a router. There is such a method, but using it you can connect only two computers, not all adapters support it, and the speed will be less than using a router.
How it works?
How to make WiFi at home is almost understandable, but how does this system work? All technology is built on access points that clients connect to. Each such point creates its own network and has its own data transfer parameters, such as network identifier, encryption method (if applicable), encryption key. Each network has a coverage area, that is, an area around the access point in which it can recognize a signal from clients, and, conversely, customers can recognize a signal from an access point. Wi-Fi hotspot has a range of up to 300 meters. But this value is "ideal", in practice it decreases due to various obstacles.
As you can see, Wi-Fi technology has a fairly short range. But progress does not stand still, and WiMAX wireless networks are gradually being introduced. WiMAX access point has a range, measured in kilometers, and perhaps in the future this technology will provide Internet access to the most remote corners of the planet.