Wi-Fi Technology

If you've been in an airport, coffee shop, library or hotel recently, chances are you've been right in the middle of a wireless network. Many people also use wireless networking, also called WiFi or 802.11 networking, to connect their computers at home, and an increasing number of cities use the technology to provide free or low-cost Internet access to residents. In the near future, wireless networking may become so widespread that you can access the Internet just about anywhere at any time, without using wires.
WiFi has a lot of advantages. Wireless networks are easy to set up and inexpensive. They're also unobtrusive - unless you're on the lookout for a place to use your laptop, you may not even notice when you're in a hotspot. In this article, we'll look at the technology that allows information to travel over the air. We'll also review what it takes to create a wireless network in your home.


IEEE 802.11 also known by the brand Wi-Fi, denotes a set of WLAN standards developed by working group 11 of the IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee(IEEE 802). The term 802.11x is also used to denote the set of amendments to the standard. The term IEEE 802.11 is also used to refer to the original 802.11 (1997), which is now sometimes called "802.11 legacy".


The 802.11 family currently includes multiple over-the-air modulation techniques that all use the same basic protocol. The most popular techniques are those defined by the b/g and a amendments to the original standard; security was originally purposefully weak due to multi-govermental meddling on export requiremnts and was later enhanced via the 802.11i amendment after govermental and legislative changes. 802.11n is a new multi-streaming modulation technique that has recently been developed; the standard is still under draft development, although products designed based on proprietary pre-draft versions of the standard are being sold. Other standards in the family (c–f, h, j) are service amendments and extensions or corrections to previous specifications. 802.11b was the first widely accepted wireless networking standard, followed by 802.11g and then 802.11a.