What is Wi-Fi?

We all come across the term Wi-Fi in our daily lives, mobiles, laptops, and everywhere Wi-Fi is supported. It is a piece of wireless networking equipment through which we can easily approach other networks or link with other devices such as computers or mobiles using a wireless bridge. In a more generic term, it sums up to be a wireless networking protocol that various gadgets encounter or make use of to communicate without direct cable connections. It comes under the local area network technology often referred to as LAN to supply in-building wideband coverage. The Wi-Fi that we are accessing today gives us a rate of 54mbps and supplies an indoor bandwidth covering a distance of 100 feet.

The full form of Wi-Fi is Wireless Fidelity. On the contrary, Wi-Fi doesn't have a full form, meaning that Wi-Fi is often exemplified as Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi, and we consider it to be a short form for the term Wireless Fidelity, but in truth, there is no such thing. The marketing firm coined this term because they wanted to encounter and go for a more user-friendly term rather than IEEE 802.11, which the people would easily forget.

We all must have thought about the connection we are using today so widely. How does it transmit the data between various devices? So, truth to be told, it uses a radio signal received from the wireless router to a close gadget or device, which then decodes the data received from the router to a format that is understandable by the user and that we can see and use.

The router we have established in our space is directly connected to an internet modulator. It behaves like a focal point, or you can say like a center to circulate internet connection to all the Wi-Fi enabled appliances. On the other hand, the device also transmits the wave back to the router, which joins the internet by wire or cable. This accommodates you to access the internet easily till you are within the range of that specified network area.

How to Set up a Wi-Fi?

To set up Wi-Fi at any given place, you first need a wireless router and an entrance to the back-office administration to compose the right connection settings such as the Wi-Fi channel, the password, and the name of that particular network. Your internet service provider majorly supplies a significant proportion of this information.

It's a simple procedure to connect a wireless gadget to a Wi-Fi connection; you have to be in a specific range where the connection is strong and make sure that the Wi-Fi connection is enabled and then put in the correct information such as SSID the password of the same.

Different kinds of Wi-Fi

In this section, we will briefly discuss the diverse kinds of Wi-Fi that were available and their developments over the years:

  • IEEE 802.11

This was the first-ever Wi-Fi developed in the history of the internet. It was developed in 1997; it guaranteed the ultimate connection speed of 1mbps at a given time. The devices that use this standard connection have not been manufactured over the years, so it doesn't come into use in this generation because of so much development in the industry.

  • IEEE 802.11b

It was established in the year 1999. This conventional used the frequency of 2.4GHz and gained a maximal speed of 11mbps. Optically, this standard connection boosted the usage of Wi-Fi that we witness today.

  • IEEE 802.11a

It also evolved in 1999, after a month of the last one. It generally worked on a 5GHz band. The data transmission speed of this standard was incremented upto 54mbps.

  • IEEE 802.11g

It was planned and equipped in the year 2003. It also magnified the data speed upto 54mbps along with keeping the aura of the 2.4GHz channel intact. This optimized the use of this conventional over the others.

  • IEEE 802.11n

Initially, it was launched in 2009, and it came gradually; its effect was weak in its early days. It warrants multi-channeling and can work on both 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands. The speed goes upto 600mbps in this one.

  • IEEE 802.11ac

This one is the most used convention these days. You can find almost anywhere from homes offices to even schools and MNCs. Initially, it was released in the year 2014. In this standard, the speed was incremented upto 1300mbps.

Advantages and Disadvantages

  • The biggest advantage that we can witness is that it's a wireless connection, and you can access it from almost anywhere without having to use any wire or cables.
  • It is scalable, implying that we can extend it using Wi-Fi extenders.
  • The most important advantage that we observe is security, as it uses WPA encryption to encode radio signals.
  • It has minimal cost as compared to others.
  • The task of set-up Wi-Fi is pretty easy. You need to configure an SSID and password.
  • It also has some disadvantages, stating that it has a higher consumption power rate.
  • If there is bad weather outside, it can affect the Wi-Fi connection.

To use the internet, we require a router, and if there is a power cut, it isn't easy to access the internet.