Wireless hotspots are spreading across the UK, with blanket wi-fi zones now being rolled out in nine urban centres. Operators are promising wireless surfing at the touch of a button from the park, the bus or the street corner. So what does the wireless future have to offer and will it live up to the hype?
What is wi-fi?
Wi-fi is the acronym for Wireless Fidelity, essentially a set of standards for transmitting data over a wireless network.
Wi-fi allows you to connect to the net at broadband speeds without cables, as long as you have the right equipment and, in most cases, a regular internet service provider and a wi-fi account.
To understand the technology behind wi-fi, imagine using a walkie-talkie. Your voice is picked up by a microphone, encoded onto a radio frequency and transmitted with the antenna to another walkie-talkie, which decodes your voice.
Wi-fi works in broadly in the same way, but using a better radio that is capable of handling a lot more data per second.
0
Wi-Fi across UK
Started by
Neon
, Mar 12 2006 05:00 PM
No replies to this topic
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users