introduction to wireless

Whether it’s because you have made a call using a mobile phone, received a message on your pager, checked your email from a PDA or even just seen an advert related to it, we have all come across a wireless data or voice network!

If a user, application or company wishes to make data portable, mobile and accessible then wireless networking is the answer. A wireless networking system would rid of the downtime you would normally have in a wired network due to cable problems. It would also save time and money due to the fact that you would spare the expense of installing a lot of cables. Also, if a client computer needs to relocate to another part of the office then all you need to do is move the machine with the wireless network card.

Wireless networking can prove to be very useful in public places – libraries, guest houses, hotels, cafeterias, and schools are all places where one might find wireless access to the Internet. From a financial point of view, this is beneficial to both the provider and the client. The provider would offer the service for a charge – probably on a pay per use system, and the client would be able to take advantage of this service in a convenient location; away from the office or home. A drawback of wireless Internet is that the QoS (Quality of Service) is not guaranteed and if there is any interference with the link then the connection may be dropped.

A wireless network is a flexible data communications system, which uses wireless media such as radio frequency technology to transmit and receive data over the air, minimizing the need for wired connections .Wireless networks are used to augment rather than replace wired networks and are most commonly used to provide last few stages of connectivity between a mobile user and a wired network.

Wireless networks use electromagnetic waves to communicate information from one point to another without relying on any physical connection. Radio waves are often referred to as radio carriers because they simply perform the function of delivering energy to a remote receiver. The data being transmitted is superimposed on the radio carrier so that it can be accurately extracted at the receiving end. Once data is superimposed (modulated) onto the radio carrier, the radio signal occupies more than a single frequency, since the frequency or bit rate of the modulating information adds to the carrier. Multiple radio carriers can exist in the same space at the same time without interfering with each other if the radio waves are transmitted on different radio frequencies. To extract data, a radio receiver tunes in one radio frequency while rejecting all other frequencies. The modulated signal thus received is then demodulated and the data is extracted from the signal.