In the age of globalization, most of us are now digitally connected wherever we go and we’re helped along by the free or customer wifi access offered by businesses, hotels and restaurants and shops. You can use your BYOD device like a laptop, mobile phone, computer or tablet to connect to the Internet via someone else’s wifi connection and we’re happy to use it even if most of us don’t know how it actually works. In this article we provide the basics of wifi connection.
What is Wifi?
Wifi or wireless networking is the wireless technology that provides wireless high-speed Internet with the help of radio waves. Wifi connection is provided to the devices with the help of a wireless adapter to create hotspots in and around the wireless router. Wireless router is a box that helps in the transmission of wireless signals.
Once the hotspot is set, the Internet connection is provided to the connected devices through frequencies between 2.4 GHz-5GHz as per the data available on the wifi network. All the internet-enabled devices are then connected to the Internet without the need of ethernet cables.
How Wifi Works?
A wifi network transmits information across a network. It needs a wireless adapter that converts data into radio signals. The signals are then transmitted through antenna to the router that decodes the signals. As the signal is decoded by the router, it is sent to the Internet via a wired Ethernet connection.
Generally, wireless networks uses the frequency level of 2.4GHz or 5GHz. Then the OFDM (The Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing) breaks the radio signals into smaller signals before entering the router. So, the basic 802.11 networking standards differ based on the user’s needs.
Frequency such as 802.11a transmits data in the level of 5GHz frequency. Again the OFDM (The Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing) breaks the signals into smaller signals before entering the router. It transmits around 54 megabits of data per second.
802.11b is another frequency that emits a slow speed frequency level of 2.4GHz. Thus, it can transmit a maximum of 11 megabits of data per second.
802.11g is a wifi frequency level that transmits data at 2.4GHz and emits around 5 megabits of data per second with the help of OFDM coding.
The advantage of Using of Wifi
The main advantage is the freedom of accessing the Internet with any device without needing to plug in an ethernet cable and your home data plan will be more cost effective than your mobile plan so you can use your mobile to access the Internet via your wifi network without chewing through your mobile data. With wifi connection at your home, you can sit in your balcony and do your work while enjoying the pleasant weather. You can also connect multiple devices to the Internet wirelessly without any glitch and in office, you can take your BYOD and connect wirelessly to the wifi.
Steps to Connect to a Wifi
Now that you know the basics of wifi, here’s how to connect to a wifi network around you. Suppose when you want to use wifi at a restaurant, airport or at a hotel, the following steps are to connect to the Internet through wifi.
- First of all, you must have a device that can be connected to the internet and wifi.
- Then search for the name of the wifi network of your location. Every network got their unique name. Basically, the name is random numbers or letters by default which most of users personalized by providing a unique name to distinguish it the network from other wifi connection. Therefore, you need to identify the name first. You can ask in the reception for the name of the network if you are in a restaurant or hotel.
- When you the network name, the next step is to connect to the wifi connection. The process of connecting to the wifi network may differ from devices to devices. But broadly, the steps are more or less similar. Here is the process:Navigate to wifi settings>turn on Wifi>Click on the name of the wifi network>click “connect”
- Most of the networks are secure with restricted access with a password. In such cases, you have to enter the password to access the wifi network in your device. So, you have to find out the password from the reception to use the wifi network. Once you enter the password, you are good to go.