What is 802.11b?

The next hot thing to hit the wireless networking market is the 802.11 standard by the IEEE. (Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineering) Currently there are two main standards introduced, the 802.11a and 802.11b standards. However now there's also 802.11G which is newer to both these standards and is said to compete with the .a standard(will discuss details later). The networking devices we'll be dealing with here today are based on the 802.11b standard. Simply put it, this is a 11Mb/s wireless Ethernet standard, and as with Bluetooth product which conform to the 802.11b specification will in most occurrences work among each other with ease.


Majority of wireless networks deployed around the world conform to the 802.11b spec, however one thing to remember is that just because a device says 802.11b does not mean that it'll work with other 802.11b devices. So the next question is, how do you find out? This is where Wi-Fi comes into the picture. No it's not Hi-Fi, it's Wi-Fi which stands for Wireless Fidelity. The Wi-Fi certification guarantees interoperability and compatibility between any 802.11b products around the globe. So if and when you do make a purchase for one of these wireless devices, make sure the Wi-Fi certification is on the box.

A typical example would be where you and a friend get hold of two competing wireless devices both of which are not under the Wi-Fi certification. With great enthusiasm you setup all network components and get ready to enjoy some wireless networking. Majority of the time it should work, however this cannot be guaranteed. What if it does not work? Oh man I wouldn't know how many times I'll kick my self in the head if that happened to me. It certainly would be one heck of a nightmare now wouldn't it. So the bottom line is if you plan on getting any wireless devices, make sure they conform to the Wi-Fi certification.

For further information go to www.wi-fi.net

Earlier we mentioned that there are two standards on the 802.11 specification, namely 802.11b and 802.11a. So what's the difference? I created this table so that it would clearly distinguish the two by comparing their highs and low's. 

There are many new standards that are coming out for wireless devices, and 802.11g is the newest so far. The great thing about this standard is that it's backward compatible with the 802.11b devices, so if you currently own any devices on the old 802.11b standard it'll still work with any 802.11g device. Since these offer greater bandwidth in comparison to 802.11b it's an instant upgrade to your network. We have not used any device based on this new standard, therefore we cannot say how good and effective they are.

Do we need wireless networks??

Well it depends. Imagine a whole office or home with no cables, now how cool would that be. The biggest advantage of all is the freedom wireless networks offer. Think about it, when was the last time you were able to browse the net sitting on your couch, garden, attic, or garage? Well that's the freedom wireless networks offer, so whether you want to make use of it or not totally depends on what you require. Besides, what would you rather have, half a dozen wires going all around your house or none at all?


Security and Encryption issues

Security is no doubt the biggest concerns people have when buying wireless networks. Therefore if it's a high-risk environment make sure you know what you're doing or it'll be an easy target for hackers. As a result most wireless networks come with some basic level of security features to prevent unwanted users from getting access to the network.

The 802.11b standard uses WEP(Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption, which encrypts the data before transmission and decrypts at the clients machine and vice versa. WEP offers 64-bit and 128-bit encryption. However it must be noted that WEP does not provide any kind of high-level security, as such, if your data is extremely sensitive, you must take appropriate measures to secure the network. The level of security implemented really depends on what kind of data is transmitted around the network. Personally I wouldn't like anyone getting access into my system, however I'll never spend a extra dime on security than implementing what's offered by the wireless networks. Many say that WEP does not offer a great deal of security, however the logic is, some form of protection is better than nothing. We'll go onto more on this as we look at individual product in concern.

Another thing to lookout for when setting up the network is the DHCP server. If you have enabled this feature, your wireless hub will act as a DHCP server and assign IP addresses to any device in its range. Imagine your neighbour who doesn't have an internet connection will now be able to access your connection for free if he gets a wireless card and hooks his machine up(Provided of course it transmits that long). Now you don't want to be an ISP who provides free internet connections to your neighbours now do you? Therefore if you think someone else could access your connection make sure you assign static IP's to all your machines.