What is Wifi? How does Wifi work?

Yes, Wifi - wireless network, has now played a very important role in our daily life, work and entertainment. But to fully understand the meaning of Wifi, what do we need to know?

1. What is Wifi?

In a sense, Wifi, the wireless Internet connection, is an acronym for Wireless Fidelity , using radio waves to transmit signals. This type of radio is similar to telephone, television and radio waves. And on most electronic devices today such as computers, laptops, phones, tablets . can connect to Wifi.

What is Wifi? How does Wifi work? Picture 1

Wifi connection is based on IEEE 802.11 standards, and currently Wifi works on the 54 Mbps band and has the strongest signal in a distance of 100 feet (nearly 31 meters, you can imagine every 1 the average floor level is 4 meters, according to the theory that the wifi wave on the first floor will still catch if you are on the 7th floor - that is according to theory In fact, in every house there are often a lot of obstacles, so you just need to stand on the 4th or 5th floor and the signal is already weak.

2. Operation principle of Wifi?

Well, very simple, to get Wifi waves, we need to have Wifi transmitters - devices like modems, routers. Input, source Internet signal (provided by ISP units such as FPT, Viettel, VNPT, CMC . currently). Modem equipment, router will take Internet signal via wired connection and turn into radio signal, and send to devices used as smartphones, tablets, laptops . This is the process of receiving credit Wireless signal (also called adapter) - is the wifi card on laptop, phone . and transformed into Internet signal. And this process is completely reversible, meaning the router, modem receives radio signals from the adapter and decodes them, sent over the Internet.

What is Wifi? How does Wifi work? Picture 2

3. Some popular Wifi connection standards:

In terms of technical nature, Wifi signal works to send and receive data at 2.5GHz to 5GHz, much higher than the frequency of mobile phones and radios . so Wifi signal can contain much data but limited in transmission range - distance. Other types of waves with low frequencies can be transmitted at a great distance ???

Wifi waves use the 802.11 connection standard in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) , which includes four smaller standards, a / b / g / n. (you often see on the modem, the router has these symbols)

1. The 802.11b standard is the weakest version, operating at 2.4GHz and can handle up to 11 megabits per second .
2. The 802.11g standard is slightly better than standard b , although it also operates at 2.4GHz but it can handle 54 megabits per second.
3. The 802.11a standard plays at a higher frequency of 5GHz and processing speed reaches 54 megabits per second .
4. Finally, 802.11n standard , it operates at 2.4GHz frequency but processing speed up to 300 megabits per second .

4. How does Wifi work?

Summary:

Like mobile phones, Wifi uses radio waves (radio waves) to transmit information through the network. Your computer includes a wireless network card that sends data to the radio signal.

Similarly this signal will be transmitted through an antenna, a decoder called a router. After decoding, the data will be sent to the Internet via a wired Ethernet connection.

When wireless networks act as two-way lines, data received from the internet will also pass through the router and be encoded into radio signals for wireless network cards on the computer to receive.

How does Wifi work?

Most users know little or even not know how Wifi works.

At first Wifi was developed as a way to replace Ethernet cables. Until now, Wifi has become a popular technology that provides connectivity between devices.

" People can get used to using Wifi as a way to connect to the Internet, because for most people it is the network they use at home or at work, " Edgar Figueroa - president and CEO. of Wi-fi Alliance said.

"However, Wifi has evolved and now Wifi can replace many different cables such as video cables, audio cables, USB cables." But the most important thing is that Wifi is currently transporting more than 60% of the world's Internet traffic.

Unlike car radio FM receivers, Wifi communicates mainly over 2 radios using lower power and broadcast over a much shorter distance.

Two radios allow users to download data from the Internet as well as upload information - even a submit address via a 2-way communication browser counter.

Wifi is more complicated than the terrestrial radio that is Wifi using Internet Protocol (Internet Protocol) to communicate. This language of Internet creates Wifi structure.

" Every transmission process we send and receive requires confirmation ," Figueroa said.

Imagine instead of sending data, you are shipping a data package worldwide and requesting delivery confirmation. That is the task that Internet Protocol (Internet Protocol) must do, only for each byte transmitted.

And once the data is 'flying over' the air in the radio waves, it will be subject to interference, and become 'victim' from other Wifi signals to radio waves emitted from the microwave .

That's where 2 Wifi frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz come in. Wifi can broadcast on both frequencies, to cut your signal to avoid interference and provide fast signals from the Wireless Router to your computer.

"Basically the frequencies are like two different FM radio stations," Figueroa said. According to physics, lower frequencies can travel further.

Wifi, 2.4 GHz have lower frequencies, so it can 'reach' computers in a way farther than the 5 GHz frequency Wifi.

However, 5 GHz WiFi can transmit more. " Imagine whether you can go on a certain highway very far, but it's just a one-lane highway ," Figueroa describes about 2.4GHz Wifi.

The 5 GHz WiFi is also a highway, but the road is not as far away as you think, but it has up to six lanes, so the traffic can move faster on that road.

" The coverage of 5 Ghz Wifi can cover an entire house ," Figueroa added. " Therefore, in most people's minds, distance problems are not as important as speed problems ."

However, since wireless phones were born, many users have experienced problems with radio signals. The only way to fix this problem is to set the frequency to broadcast on a certain channel.

Most routers are 'very good' automatically detecting the best channels to use. And 5 GHz WiFi has more channels than Wifi 2.4GHz.

For unstable Wi-Fi network users, refining the network will be much more useful and effective than installing a network extension kit. 'Network extender' is increasingly popular, Figueroa said.

However, the problem here is that the extender 'pushes' a weak Wifi signal. So if your wireless Internet transmits only half the old speed, the extender will repeat that signal, pushing out an even weaker signal than it.

Wifi also has some security features. To access the network, users must have a WPA2 password, also known as WPA (number 2 representing the second generation of WPA). This is where you enter the password to connect to the Wifi network.

There is also another security feature called Advanced Encryption Standard (also known as AES) developed by the US government to ensure data is safe because it transmits from another device.

Perhaps the most important feature of Wifi is the backward compatibility feature. With this feature, all your old computers can connect to a new 'super fast' Router.

Hopefully some of the basic information above can help you better understand that Wifi exists around us every day.

Refer to some of the following articles:

1. How to view saved Wifi passwords on Windows 7/8/10

1. How to use Command Prompt to manage wireless networks on Windows 10?

1. When detecting someone using Wifi temple, do the following to prevent

Good luck!