A bit of info about wireless networking - AKA Wi-Fi

While I was in the middle of writing this post, I was contacted by a friend who just wanted to know how to connect to a Wi-Fi HotSpot. So I split this post into two different posts. Have been out to a Star Bucks and wanted use there Wi-Fi and connect to the internet to check your email maybe even update your Twitter or Facebook page, but you don’t know how, then read my previous post. But if you want to know more about all this wireless stuff, and even how to setup your own wireless network, then read on.

Well kick back and relax, and hopefully when all is said and done, you will have a much clearer picture of what is really going on. I’ll try and keep this as simple but yet thorough as possible.

Ok, so first of all in order to establish a wireless network connection, you need two main things, a wireless access point (AP) - AKA wireless router, and a wireless client adapter. Well, three things if you count the computing device such as a Computer (Laptop or Desktop), I-Phone, Palm, or what ever device you have or use that has built in Wi-Fi (Wireless Client Device).

If you are at an establishment that offers free Wi-Fi, like StarBucks, McDonalds, Ramoda INN.. then the first thing, the Wireless AP is already provided by them. If you are at home and just want to roam around in you house with a wireless laptop and have access to the internet, then you need to pick a Wireless Router. You can get one at most electronics stores, WalMart, Best Buy, Radio Shack. Just make sure that if you get your internet from a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) it does not interfere with there outdoor equipment. I no this sounds a bit overwhelming and confusing, but don’t despair I will explain more. If you get your internet from a cable TV company, or from a satellite internet company with a dish like HughesNet or Wild Blue, or from your local telephone company through the phone lines, then you do not need to worry about interfering with there equipment.

Now you will also want to make sure that you get a Wireless Router that is compatible with your current wireless client devices. If you do not have a computer or laptop with a wireless client device, then you can pick up both the router and client device at the same time that way you can make sure that they are compatible.

Wireless devices are categorized by protocol standards that use certain terms that will need to know. When you get to the store, you will many different brands, models, and code terms that may seem overwhelming or confusing at first, but I will break it down for you. First of all you will see all of the different brands, (Linksys, Netgear, D-Link and maybe even more) but that is really not as important as the models and the protocols they use. Second, you will see all of the different models and the protocol terms I was telling you about, like 802.11-x. There are several different protocols, 802.11-B, 802.11-G, and the latest 802.11-N (or MiMo which is the pre-release before N was complete), all of which run on the 2.4ghz wireless frequency. The most common is 802.11-G.

The G protocol is an update to the B protocol, and the N base protocol is very similar to G accept that is uses multiple wireless channels at the same time, where as G can only use one channel at a time. The purpose of using multiple channels at the same time is increase the amount of bandwidth (or data transmission) that is transferred between your computer and the router, there by increasing the connection speeds, and in some cases it also increases the distance you can travel from the router and still remain connected. The down side is that if you do not have a N device on your computer but you do have a N router, then the connection will default back down to a G connection. So if you already have a G device in your computer, then purchasing a N router (at a higher price) will give you no increase in speed or distance coverage. In the US there are a total of 11 - 2.4 ghz channels that can be used.

Now just for the purpose of being thorough, I also wanted to let you know that there is also a 802.11-A protocol that was introduced around the same time as G and offered higher connection speeds, but did not make it in the market very well because it uses the higher 5.8 ghz frequency, and because it is a higher frequency it has a harder time going through solid objects such as walls, floors, furnaces and such, therefore making the ability to sustain a connection was much more difficult.

So before deciding which router to buy, keep in mind that no matter how fast the computer and router can communicate, your internet connection will never be able to go faster than the speed package you are subscribed to from your ISP. If you already have an internet connection, and you just want more speed, then buying a fast router probably won’t help, you need to call your ISP and upgrade your speed package. If you are currently at the bottom speed package, then purchasing an N router will not help you out accept maybe the distance you can move away from the router. If you are currently subscribed to an upper speed package from your ISP, then you may benefit from getting an N router and N client device. If you have multiple computers in the home or office and you need to transfer a lot files between them, then the higher speed of the N router and N clients would help out with the file transfers.

For the most part, you should be just fine with a G Router and G client device. If you have an older laptop that has a built in Wireless B client device, don’t fret, it will still connect to a G router, they will just communicate with each other at the slower B protocol. If you have a computer or laptop that does not have any wireless client device, you have the option of purchasing a device that gets installed inside the computer, or if you do not want to get inside the computer, or pay someone to install it, then you can purchase one that plugs into one of your USB ports on the outside of the computer or a wireless card that plugs into the PCMCIA expansion port on the side of your laptop. Just keep in mind that the Wireless Client Devices that are inside the computers or a PCMCIA card, tend to last longer then there external USB counterparts.

Now if all you are looking for is a way to connect to a public wireless connection, or a friends wireless, then you only need the wireless client device, the wireless AP has already been provided by your friend or the public location for you to connect to. As I stated earlier, G is the most common wireless protocol, so most public locations are wireless G networks.

Ok, so let’s assume that you are going to get a wireless router for your home or office. Once you decide on the best router for your needs, then you need to know how to hook it up and where to put it in the building. You will want to try and keep it as centrally located as possible. Put it on the middle floor in the center of the building. If you put it in the basement, you may not be able to keep a good connection to it from the 2nd floor, or if you place it in the far east end of the building, you may not be able to keep a good connection from the far west side of the building. Of course if you have a very small building or home, you could probably get away with placing it just about anywhere in the building. Your particular circumstance may affect where you can place the router, like if you already have a room with several computers that are not wireless, you may need to place the router in that room, just keep in mind that you may not be able to use your wireless laptop at the opposite corner of the building form the router. If you run into a circumstance were you need to cover an area that is just out of reach, then you can purchase a Wireless Range Extender. A device that should be placed just within range of the of the main wireless routers signal, then it connects to the router and extends the range of the wireless signal so you can get to those hard to reach areas.

Now let’s touch a little bit on mixed wireless and wired networks in your home or office using a wireless router. A wireless router is more then just a Wireless Access Point (WAP). It also has ports on the back for 3-5 hardwired (non-wireless) computers as well.

Now connecting your router to your internet is the easy part. Your connection comes into the home from your internet provider (ISP), and may require a Modem of sorts, then the connection comes out of that modem and into your computer. Simply disconnect the Ethernet cable (looks kinda like an over sized phone cord) from your computer coming from the modem and plug it into the Internet port (sometimes referred as a WAN port) on the back of the router before plugging the power cord into the router. Yes you will need another outlet for yet another power plug. Do not plug the power cord in yet, just get it ready to plug in. Now if you are currently connected to your Modem via USB, then you will need an additional Ethernet cable to connect the Modem to the Router because the router cannot connect to a modem via a USB cable.

Next, to set up your router for the first time, you will need to plug your laptop directly into your router with an Ethernet cable (usually 1 is provided with the router, if not you will need to pick one or two up when you purchase the router). Simply plug one end into the Ethernet port on your laptop, then other end into one of the other open ports (1, 2, 3…) on the back of the router.

Now run the CD that was provided with the router on your laptop and follow the onscreen instructions. The software will tell you when to plug the router into the power. At some point during the setup process the software may ask if you want to setup wireless security, I recommend yes. It may not ask, it may just move right into setting up wireless security. Also it will ask you for 2 different passwords. One password is an Administrator password that you may need in the future to log into the router in order to make changes to its settings. The other is the Wireless Encryption Key (Pass-Phrase) that you or anyone else will need in order to connect to your new wireless network. Also it will ask you to re-name your wireless network (SSID). This makes it so when you scan for a wireless network, you will know which wireless network is yours. Most people make the SSID there last name or the name of there business. As far as the rest of the settings, most of time, the default settings will be correct.

Once setup is complete, you can now disconnect the Ethernet cable from your laptop, and connect to your new wireless network (read my previous post to connect to a wireless network). Now that you have connected to your wireless network, you can open up the status window for your wireless connection and see a live signal meter showing you how strong or weak your signal is. At this point you should wander around the building with this meter open and get to know were your weakest and strongest signals are, so you know what rooms to avoid.

I hope this post has cleared up some confusion and not created more confusion. If you are still totally lost, you may want to enlist the help of a friend who has done this sort of thing before, or hire someone who specializes in Wireless Networking.

How to take advantage of Free WiFi at Starbucks or Ramada, or maybe your friends house.

So you have been out to a Star Bucks or to a friends house and wanted use there Wi-Fi and connect to the internet to check your email maybe even update your Twitter or Facebook page, but you just don’t know how to make that wireless connection!

Hang on, and we’ll get you surfing and emailing in just a few moments.

I was in the middle of writing a much longer and more descriptive version of this post when a friend called and asked me how in the world they use a free Wi-Fi connection. So I decided to write this post and get it out there before putting out the much more descriptive version.

Well here is what I told her. I don’t care if you are using a wireless laptop (or tablet pc) or some Wi-Fi enabled handheld device, the basics are the same, the only real difference is how you get to the settings that need to be addressed.

First off we need to make sure that the wireless client is turned on in your computing device. Quite often on laptops and tablet’s, there is a switch or button somewhere on the outside of the case to turn on or shut off wireless capability. Most of the time there is a lit up icon somewhere near the keyboard or the front of the case letting you know if wireless is enabled or not.

After that we just need to make sure that wireless capability is enabled in the computing devices Operating System (OS). Basically you just need to go to the devices settings page or control panel, then go to networking, once there you should see your wireless client device.

Next we need to make sure that it can see the Wi-Fi signal, some where in the settings for your wireless client, you should see a scan button, that will tell the device to “sniff the air waves” for a wireless signal. This can take a few moments to complete. Once completed, it should show you a list off all of the wireless signals that it could see in range, and there current signal strengths. Each signal has a name, called an SSID.

Next you need to select the appropriate SSID for where you are at. So if you are at Starbucks, you should see an SSID called Starbucks, or if at McDonalds you should see SSID McDonalds. If you are at a friends house, you might see an SSID with there last name, or maybe the generic name given by there wireless router, like LinkSys, or Netgear, your friend should know the name of there wireless network. So select the appropriate SSID, and then you should see a connect button, click on that. If the SSID that you wish to connect to has an icon next to it showing a lock, or it may simply say secured, that means that you need to know a pass-phrase in order to establish a wireless connection to there network. This is commonly known as a Wireless Encryption Key. There are many types of wireless keys like WEP, WPA, TKIP, or what ever, the most common is WEP, but that does not matter at this moment, your client device should have already detected the type of encryption and display the appropriate pass-phrase box, what does matter is that you must know what the pass-phrase (or password) is.

If you are at a friends, they should know what they setup there pass-phrase to be, or at least have it written down somewhere. If you are at a public location, then you may need to go up to the counter to get information on connecting to there specific wireless network. Some public locations, known as HotSpots, will have an un-secured wireless network, and you will be able to connect to there wireless network without knowing and entering a wireless encryption key, but once you connect to there network, and you try to surf to a web page, you be interrupted and redirected to a special account page asking for your HotSpot account info, or sign up right there on that page. You may have to go up to the counter and sign up and get account info there.

In any case, if it’s a secured network, as soon as you click on connect you will be prompted to enter the pass-phrase (encryption key). Some client device software will require you to enter the key twice, and some only once. Either way, just make sure that you enter the key exactly because they are Caps sensitive.

Once you successfully connect, you should be able to open your web-browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera…) and go to a web page, try a few different pages, Google, MSN, Yahoo.com, or where ever. If all is well, you be able to check email and surf the web.

Some public Wi-Fi providers do not encrypt there wireless signals, so you will not need the know an encryption key or pass phrase to connect to there wireless network, but instead, when you first attempt to browse to a webpage, there system will redirect you to a special webpage that will ask for a password provided to you from the front desk. Once you enter that password, then you can freely browse the internet.

If you get DNS errors or pages just do not load, even after trying a few different pages, then there is an issue, either the encryption key was not correct (some software’s will allow you to enter an incorrect key and not warn you that it its wrong) or your main networking settings are incorrect.

While you are in your settings page for your wireless client device, check the TCP/IP settings, and make sure that it is set to Auto or DHCP, or some public places require that you enter specific or advanced settings in the TCP/IP area.

Just remember that not all Wireless Wi-Fi HotSpots are free to use, some do charge for the use of there wireless network. Make sure to ask the clerk for more details.

I hope this helped you out as much as it did for my friend.