Personal Wireless Networks

So you want to get on the wireless bandwagon? Where do you start? Is it complicated to setup? These are just a few questions the newbie user might ask his or herself. We were all there at one time so let’s go over a few key points to help you sort it out.

Ah… the freedom of surfing on your wireless device without being connected by wires and the ability to move around your home or onto the patio. Is it time for you to set up a wireless home base? Well the technology available and affordable prices may be telling you that it’s time to take the plunge but where to start. Well it all depends upon what sort of equipment you have at home or will you be upgrading anyways? Older PCs and laptops may be a bit trickier to setup but it can be done. You also have to figure out the wireless standard that your devices will support. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics (IEEE) have created standards for Wireless Local Area Networks. Currently, you will see 802.11b 802.11a 802.11g on both routers and NICS so you should do your homework on the differences in these technologies. If you have recently purchased new desktop PC’s, laptops or PDA’s then you may already have wireless network interface cards (NICs) installed. If not then you’ll have to go out and purchase them and either install them yourself or pay a techie to do it for you. You’ll also need to buy a wireless router. Routers are now very inexpensive as well. The only drawback is that many routers on the market these days don’t come out of the box configured for security at all. They are usually security disabled and the responsibility lies with the user to configure these little boxes up properly. It’s recommended to use their wizard to set up the basics if there’s one provided. Then you can make adjustments later on as you see fit or as you learn how to use it better.

The reason that you need security on your wireless network is that wireless data transmission is not secure. It is still very easy for hackers to sniff out data being sent through the air. That means that any personal data that you input over a wireless connection is up for grabs such as passwords, credit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers etc. Another reason to secure your connection is to keep unwanted war drivers (Wardriving is searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks) from using your connection, stealing your bandwidth or ultimately hacking into your PC. Some people are fine with letting others use their connection but it may not be fine with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and certainly wouldn’t be fine if your connection was used as part of a denial of service attack on some poor unsuspecting company or private website.

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