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Wi-Fi technology is a very useful for connecting a device to a network without cables.

In place of the cable that connects your computer to a hub and a router in the workplace it is now possible to use a set of radio based protocols to connect whenever your computer or other device is within range of and access point.

Ten years ago wireless was a very expensive and not very quick solution that was mainly used where it was too difficult to run a cable, such as in historical buildings where preservation orders made it impossible to hammer holes in the fabric of the building.

Nowadays most new laptops come with built in wifi capability and many homes have adopted it as an easy way of getting internet access into the whole house.

It is also common to find bars and hotels with wifi access points.

All that is needed is a decent site for positioning your access point and a simple program to make the connection.

In my home, the downside of wifi becomes apparent; the house is 200 years old and built from Purbeck stone. Some of the walls are three feet thick, this is a real bar to any radio signal.

Those rooms that are beyond the thick walls are cabled in the traditional manner with Cat5 cabling, an Ethernet router and conventional network cards. The laptops all connect in the sitting room quite happily.

To recognise equipment that uses modern wifi standards look for compatibility with an IEEE standard 802.11. Currently we are working with 802.11G, which supports a network connection speed if up to 54Mbps (Mega bits per second)

The weakness of wifi is security. Unless you encrypt your connection, anyone within range of your system will be able to use your connection.

"Fine" you might say, "they can use it when I am not" but you do need to consider the problems that might occur.

An example of this came when the police burst in and arrested a colleague of mine.

He was questioned for many hours about his browsing and downloading of child pornography. They searched his computer and it was not returned to him for over a year. His involvement? He had an open connection at his home and the police discovered that the IP address that was used to download some pretty nasty material was traced as one leased to him.

Fortunately a witness reported seeing a man in a car with a laptop on or around the date in question. Having found nothing illegal on my colleague's system the police were satisfied that he was the victim of an opportunist paedophile. although he was exonerated he was deprived of his computer and had some very unpleasant moments.

wifi is a great networking technology but you should read up carefully on its safe use.

Some people believe that the radio waves from wifi equipment can be harmful but a recent scientific study failed to prove any link between health conditions and the presence of wifi.

Learn more about this author, Jeff Dray.
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