The Wireless Fidelity Technology

The wireless technology has recently replaced the connected technology used in communication. Instead of the cable, the technology uses the radio waves to transmit data packets. Wireless technology was developed to provide the connection services provided by the wired network but exclude the need of having a connection cable. The recent discovery of the use of Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), an IEEE802.11 standard for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) has made the connection to the electronic devices much simpler. Wi-Fi Alliance is responsible for promoting and certifying the devices used by the Wi-Fi technology (Sharma, 2014). The regulator is interested in the development of Wi-Fi devices that comply with the open standards and certify only the products that effectively complete the assessments of Wi-Fi interoperability. The technology allows connection of laptops, cell phones, automobiles and Gameboys to a network where they can share data or can access internet connection wirelessly (Banerji & Chowdhury, 2013). Wi-Fi is pushing performance and user experience of wireless networks to guarantee that is moving with a pace that matches the ever-increasing demand of higher data transmission rates, usage speeds and the new models (Verma, Fakharzadeh & Choi, 2013).

Wireless Fidelity uses three different network topologies. The Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS) is a peer-to-peer configuration, which does not require any single node connected to the network to act as a server (Sharma, 2014). An access point provides ad hoc environment where the devices can directly communicate with each other. The configuration is known to have limited area coverages. The Basic Service Set (BSS) is the network configuration, which requires an access point, which provides the connection to wireless devices, to be connected to a cable network. The access point performances as the server for the WLAN and the communication between the codes passes through the access points (Sharma, 2014). The Extended Service Set (ESS) is the last topology used in the Wi-Fi technology and it provides the overlapping BSS services under the connection of distributed systems (Sharma, 2014). It provides a wider coverage because it allows roaming of mobile nodes between access points.

Differentiated Wi-Fi standards

There have been differentiated Wi-Fi standards developed since its discovery. The IEEE 802.11a, one of the standards current has no utility. The IEEE 802.11b, which operate on an 11Mbps as the maximum bandwidth uses 2.4 GHz as its range of frequency. With an increased channel size and improved speed of 54Mbps, IEEE 802.11g, also operate at a 2.4GHz frequency. The IEEE 802.11n works between the frequency range of 2.4 and 5GHz and an extended 300Mbps maximum bandwidth. The latest standard is the IEEE 802.11ac with a 5GHz and above frequency range and 7Gbps bandwidth and the model target transfer of data in gigabytes (Verma, Fakharzadeh & Choi, 2013). The new technology has some benefits and challenges that come with it.

Benefits of Wi-Fi Technology

1. Cheaper than Wired LAN

Wi-Fi is cheaper compared to cable network because one requires just the access point and the cost of cables, server and labor and a technical connection is reduced. In addition, the increased use in the market has resulted in the development of cheaper certified devices (Sharma, 2014). The affordability is making many academic institution and public places install the Wi-Fi services to make learning easy and attract customers (Sharma, 2014).

2. Mobility

The ease of connecting without plugging in has increased the use of Wi-Fi due to the comfort of moving with the access device. Mobility is tested by the ability of a device to stay connected to the network if it stays in the range of network reach (Summit Data Communications, 2009).

3. Certified and Quality Devices

The Wi-Fi Alliance aims at regulating the devices that which are developed to connect and give access to the internet via wireless fidelity. Many companies are investing in producing non-profit business of developing devices with the best interoperability and security features (Summit Data Communications, 2009). Different devices security features have been developed to make the operation in wireless fidelity is safe and data inside the network is not manipulated. WEP, WPA, and WPA2 are the security systems put in place because open wifi system can be prone to network attacks due to its lack of inherent physical protection and injection of malicious messages into the network (Zou, Zhu, Wang & Hanzo, 2016). The security feature has helped the confidentiality, authenticity, integrity, and availability of network and its data (Zou, Zhu, Wang & Hanzo, 2016).

Limitation of Wi-Fi

1. Data Security

In an Ethernet connection, the security of the data is based on how well you are connected to the network using a cable. Although there are security features in the connection to a Wi-Fi network, anyone connected through the access point can be able to access data rotating in the network, which is a big challenge to data ownership (Sharma, 2014). It is possible without proper encryption of the data, any user in the network can interrupt, access, manipulate and use data, which is a loss to the owner. To prevent access and manipulation of data, it requires additional security features to ensure data is available for the authorized users only. The users on the internet can choose different security measures to ensure data is safe.

2. Interference

Basic connecting devices in a wireless fidelity are electronic devices, which produce electromagnetic fields, which interfere with radio waves transmission (Baikova et al., 2016). The fields result in flaky connections, spotty coverage and dropping the connection. In a location where there is dense deployment, a different access point may overlap in channel usage because the wireless technology usually uses a local unlicensed channel (Ratheesh, n.d). The overlap and the reuse of the channel cause interference. In a BSS, the stations compete for the channels and the connected devices usually receive an acknowledgment from access point but an increased number of clients result in interference (Ratheesh, n.d). A small amount of traffic is usually adequate to intensify the contention and deduct Transmission Control Protocol download performance (Maity, Raman & Vutukuru, 2015).

3. Fixed Channels and Limited Range

There are 1 to 13 channels in the 2.4 GHz frequency, which are spaced every 5Hz (Miklavcic, 2014). 1, 6 and 11 in the spectrum are a special channel, which is limited, and selecting them is necessary for a person who requires maximum network use because there are the only non-overlapping channels (Miklavcic, 2014). Many Wi-Fi routers usually select one or more of these channels automatically on set-up, which reduces the speed and increases interferences. The range of access is also limited to the signal reach.

Conclusion

The wireless fidelity has been developed and is one of the commonest used wireless networks. The use has raised due to development of mobile devices that can access the network. The ability to connect to the network comfortably without considering the cable has been one of the advantages of wireless network although they comprise speed and access range.

References

Banerji, S., & Chowdhury, R. S. (2013). On IEEE 802.11: Wireless LAN Technology. arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.2661.

Sharma, E. P. (2014). Comparative Study of Wi-Fi. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, 824.

Verma, L., Fakharzadeh, M., & Choi, S. (2013). Wifi on steroids: 802.11 ac and 802.11 ad. IEEE Wireless Communications, 20(6), 30-35.

Ratheesh, K. V. (n.d) Dense WiFi: Challenges and Performance Measurements (Doctoral dissertation, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay Mumbai).

Mukulika Maity, Bhaskaran Raman, and Mythili Vutukuru. TCP download performance in dense wifi scenarios. In Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), 2015 7th International Conference on, pages 1–8. IEEE, 2015

Maity, M., Raman, B., & Vutukuru, M. (2015). TCP download performance in dense wifi scenarios. In Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), 2015 7th International Conference on (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

Baikova, E. N., Valtchev, S. S., Melício, R., & Pires, V. M. (2016, April). Electromagnetic interference impact of wireless power transfer system on data wireless channel. In Doctoral Conference on Computing, Electrical and Industrial Systems(pp. 293-301). Springer, Cham.

Miklavcic, P. (2014). On the number of non-overlapping channels in the IEEE 802.11 WLANs operating in the 2.4 GHz band/O stevilu neprekrivajocih kanalov v IEEE 802.11 brezzicnih lokalnih omrezjih, delujocih v 2, 4 GHz pasu. Elektrotehniski Vestnik, 81(3), 148.

Summit Data Communications. (2009). Wi-Fi: The Importance of Mobility. Retrieved from https://kb.trancon.nl/hc/nl/article_attachments/.../advies_WiFi_roaming.pdf

Zou, Y., Zhu, J., Wang, X., & Hanzo, L. (2016). A survey on wireless security: Technical challenges, recent advances, and future trends. Proceedings of the IEEE, 104(9), 1727-1765.