A home network is a very complex thing. Taking information from one place to another place which might not eve be on the same continent is a pretty big deal. This article will not go into too much technical jargon, but will do a thorough job of answering general (and some complex) questions about networking, especially wireless networking. Let us look at the most basic aspects of a wireless network in a question/answer format.
How does the signal get from my computer to my router, the Internet and back again?
When a computer user is connected to the internet, they are almost constantly sending signals to multiple places. The way this is achieved begins with binary code. Everything the user does is broken down into binary code and sent (in this case, wirelessly) to the router and then towards the destination you have given it. In the case of a wireless connection, it is sent from the wireless card to the router using a protocol called CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) which only allows one node (or computer) to access the router at once. If one computer is using the router and a second computer wants to use it too, the second system is sent a sort of “busy signal” and must wait a specified amount of time. Once the time is up, the computer may resend the request. For reference, a wired connection uses CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection), which enables the computer to sense when another node is using the router. This way the request is not sent in the first place.
This, of course, makes more sense, but it is not possible with a wireless connection as there is no permanent connection to the router. The connections imply stops when the request has been fulfilled unlike the wired connection which always has the cable connected. The router now relies on the 7-layer OSI model (which is too elaborate and advanced to fit into in this article, but Google can e your friend) in order to get the information to and from the destination host.Basically, the router (which for the sake of argument will work as a DNS server in this scenario) finds Google’s assigned IP address and throws your request for Google out to their web server. The connection is directed at port 80 for access to a web page and is then processed by Google’s web server. The signal is then sent back the same way it was sent out from the computer. When it arrives back, the user sees the display from Google. This process is done very quickly as you get your display sometimes in a matter of less than a second. If the user lives in the US and the web server is in China (again, only for the sake of argument), the speed at which all this is done is quite impressive to the uninitiated. This is a very brief description of how the process works.
What Kind of Protection is Available for Wireless Networks?
There are a few options for wireless encryption. Encryption is very useful as it helps keep people off your wireless network if they aren’t supposed to be on. This is basically a password-protection for your connection. Some of the more popular choices are as follows: » Read more: Understanding Your Home Network
