Wireless Internet

About Wireless Internet
WiFi is a variant of Wireless networking. There are a wide range of competing technologies all designed to achieve the same aim – network connection, but offered in different flavours of connection speed, radio channel and physical range. Wireless connection poses a number of challenges in creating stable and suitable connection environments, but once these have been overcome this medium offers the user a number of advantages, the most important being mobility.

Wireless LAN is offered in a number of variants all based on standards from the IEEE 802.11 working group.

The first commercial versions of this wireless medium were offered as 802.11b. This is a short-range high bandwidth service provided using the unlicensed 2.4GHz band and offering potential connection speeds of up to 11Mbps. This is more commonly known as WiFi and is the version of wireless technology most associated with hotspots and general commercial wireless applications.

Providers of WiFi in the UK include BT Openzone and Cloud, which is a ‘connectivity portal’, giving users access to a variety of wireless service providers.
There are further variants of this radio technology that have either been released or are being further developed to improve on the service currently offered by 802.11b.

• 802.11a operates in the 5.4 GHz frequency; this offers increased bandwidth and throughput achieving speeds of up to 54Mbps. With its higher bandwidth and up to 13 channels, 802.11a is a better choice for areas with a high density of users or for applications that require higher data rates. Intel’s widely-promoted Centrino technology was launched on 802.11b although faster 802.11a variants are now available.
• 802.11g (also known as 54g) can offer speeds of up to 54Mbps over longer distances and supports backward compatibility for 802.11b devices (802.11a technology fails to do this) but to support both 802.11a and 802.11g client types, more expensive, dual-mode access points are required.
  
• Further hybrids of this technology include 802.16 (Wi-Max) or 802.20 (Mobile-Fi). These later two technologies are of great importance as their range and data throughput potential may offer them as an alternative to compete with the new 3G mobile data services being offered by the mobile telephony operators. Both Wi-Max and Mobile-Fi are still in the early stages of development. Trials are currently taking place using pre-launch Wi-Max equipment to determine the viability of using this technology as a long-range wireless high-speed data mechanism for fixed line infrastructure. In effect this is using a wireless medium to deliver high-speed data backbone services traditionally delivered by wire, such as household or business ADSL or greater speed backbone connections.

Concerns have been raised in the Press regarding WiFi safety. The World Health Organisation has issued guidance on this issue.