Let’s take a little time today to discuss wireless networking. If you don’t have it now, you might have it in a few weeks after you open packages from under the tree. Who knows, right? Wireless networking is not all that mysterious, really, but it’s commonly misunderstood. I’ll describe the most common components that a home-based wireless network will have, assuming the following scenario:

• A broadband (cable, DSL, etc.) Internet connection
• One PC that will be wired to the network
• One laptop that will connect to the network via wireless

Let’s also get some of vocabulary housekeeping out of the way:

• A “network” can be as little as two devices (a computer and a wireless router, for example) that are hooked together in a way that allows them to share information and/or resources.
• For purposes of this article’s scenario, a “wireless router” is a device that allows multiple network devices (computers, laptops, some printers, etc.) to either communicate with each over a cable or over a wireless radio frequency. In other words, your wireless router is what makes your wireless network possible.
• “IP addresses” are special numbers that identify a device on a network and allow devices to find each other. Every device must have its own, unique IP Address.

Your wireless router is the central piece of your network. In our scenario, we’ll plug our Internet connection directly into the wireless router, usually into a special port labeled “WAN” or “Internet.” Now, instead of your Internet connection going straight into one computer, it’s going to make it’s first stop at your wireless router. The router now makes the connection to the Internet, and shares your Internet connection with all of the devices that you attach to the router.

We’ll now use an Ethernet cable to plug the PC directly into the wireless router. Your router will assign the computer an IP address. This is another essential function of your wireless router. It must keep track of all the IP addresses that it has assigned to all the devices that are connected to the network, since no two can be alike.

Finally, we’ll turn on our laptop. If your laptop came with built-in wireless network device, it should have some kind of software installed already to detect and connect to wireless networks. As long as you’re within range of your wireless router, your laptop will see the wireless network, connect to it and get it’s own unique IP address.

Now you’ve got a cabled PC and a wireless laptop sharing your broadband Internet connection. Your wireless router can probably handle many devices connected at once, so you’ve got room to grow.

This also works for a non-wireless network as well. Just replace “wireless router” with a non-wireless router and do the same thing.

***

[Author’s Note: “Ask the Geek” is published weekly in the Stratford Star - the penultimate reading experience for residents of Stratford, Texas, population 1,920. It is posted on WritersCafe.net for posterity. Feel free to comment, but I can’t promise you’ll make the Star.]