Visions Business Services
can handle all your wireless networking needs. VBS has Certified network technicians to professionally plan, install, configure, and maintenance your wireless networks at home or the office. Our technical services will have all your WiFi devices communicating with one another, making you more productive and your connections seemless.
Wireless networking is a technology that enables the cabling that connects each
computer to the network to be replaced by a specially coded wireless signal.
When fitted with a wireless network card, a computer can exchange data with
other similarly equipped computers nearby without the need to be plugged into a
network point; forming a wireless network.
Most wireless components are built with their own
software or firmware that will make them work out of the box, but this deceptive ease
of use hides a number of pitfalls to do with differing standards, physical
limitations with wireless signals, and security issues. These pitfalls can make
setting up or extending a wireless network a nightmare.
Wireless Standards
There are three basic ,wireless network standards available. These standards were established by the IEEE (Institution of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers) and are commonly called the 802.11x standards, as there
are presently three different ones in use: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g.
| Standard |
Speeds |
Frequency |
Typical-Range
Outdoors / Indoors |
Compatible
Standards |
| 802.11a |
up to 54Mbps |
5 GHz |
23 m / 8 m |
802.11b |
| 802.11b |
up to 11Mbps |
2.4 GHz |
50 m / 20 m |
802.11b only |
| 802.11g |
up to 11Mbps |
54 GHz |
50 m / 20 m |
802.11g and 802.11b |
There is also a standard called
WI-FI. This is not an electrical standard like the
IEEE 802.11x standards described above; it is a standard agreed by a number of
manufacturers to ensure compliance between their wireless systems. To obtain
WI-FI Certification, manufacturers must submit a sample product for testing to
see if it will work correctly with other
WI-FI compliant devices. If the sample
product passes the test, then the product can be certified for use with other
WI-FI
devices and can be sold with this accreditation.
So how many computers or wireless devices can run on the network?
A good rule of thumb is to assume that each computer is running the internet, collecting e-mail,
saving a file to the server, or sending prints to a network printer and will use about 2
mbps of the available bandwidth of the network (you may consider using 4mbps as an estimate for online gaming devices). For example, the bandwidth of
an
802.11b network is nominally 11Mbps maximum, so dividing this by 2 will
suggest you could connect 5 computers and expect a reasonable performance.
Using the same rule of thumb, an
802.11g or
802.11a network, nominally 54
Mbps maximum, would probably support up to 25 computers. It must be
emphasized that these are only rough figures, and assume that the maximum
data rate can be achieved in each type of network. As distance increases, the maximum available bandwidth falls, and this should be taken into consideration when applying the above rule of thumb.
