IF01409

Wireless Router

In computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP or AP) is a device that connects wireless communication devices together to form a wireless network. The WAP usually connects to a wired network, and can relay data between wireless devices and wired devices. Several WAPs can link together to form a larger network that allows "roaming". (In contrast, a network where the client devices manage themselves - without the need for any access points - becomes an ad-hoc network.) WAPs have IP addresses for configuration.

Low-cost and easily-installed WAPs grew rapidly in popularity in the early 2000s. These devices offered a way to avoid the tangled messes of category 5 cable associated with typical Ethernet networks of the day. Whereas wiring a business, home, or school often requires stringing many cables through walls and ceilings, wireless networking allows connecting with few or no new cables. Wireless networks also allow greater mobility, freeing users from the restrictions of using a computer cabled to the wall. In the industrial and commercial contexts, wireless networking has had a big impact on operations: employees in these areas now often carry portable data terminals integrating barcode scanners and wireless links, allowing them to update work in progress and inventory in real-time. At home with a residential gateway, any convenient chair or lawn becomes a desk for the laptop.

A typical corporate use involves attaching several WAPs to a wired network and then providing wireless access to the office LAN. Within the range of the WAPs, the wireless end user has a full network connection with the benefit of mobility. In this instance, the WAP functions as a gateway for clients to access the wired network. Another use involves bridging two wired networks in conditions inappropriate for cable: for example, a manufacturer can wirelessly connect a remote warehouse's wired network with a separate (though within line of sight) office's wired network.

Another wireless topology, a lily-pad network, consists of a series of access points spread over a large area, each connected to a different network. This provides hot spots where wireless clients can connect to the Internet without regard for the particular networks to which they have attached for the moment. The concept can become organic in large cities, where a combination of coffeehouses, libraries, other public spaces offering wireless access, as well as privately owned open access points, allow clients to roam over a large area (like hopping from lily pad to lily pad), staying more or less continuously connected.

Home wireless networks, the majority, generally have only one wireless router to connect all the computers in a home. Most leave their encryption settings at default, hence neighbors cannot use them. In places where most homes have their own WAP within range of the neighbors' WAP, it's possible for technically savvy people to turn off their encryption and set up a wireless community network, creating an intra-city communication network without the need of wired networks.

A WAP may also act as the network's arbitrator, negotiating when each nearby client device can transmit. However, the vast majority of currently installed IEEE 802.11 networks do not implement this, using a distributed pseudo-random algorithm instead.

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