Wi-fi

by
V.SANDEEP S.RAVI KIRAN B.TECH Sandeep747747@gmail.com ravi_kiran867@yahoo.com B.TECH

POTTI SRIRAMULU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY VIJAYAWADA

Abstract
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WiFi Think of it as an eighteen-wheeler screaming down the pike, carrying the future of computing with it. The driver is friendly. You can stick out your thumb and hitch a ride, or be left in the dust. WIFI, in the broadest sense is a term used for a specific protocol to network your computer to another computer or network. It allows you to from to the your

of 802.11x

wireless protocol

networking and the corresponding to WiFi .The paper deals with the basic concepts of wireless networking and goes into the in-depth of 802.11x which backbone upcoming technology, Seamless networking neither compromise anymore showpiece end of the nor of a high is a Wi-Fi. protocol forms of the the

connect Internet

couch at home, a bed in a hotel room or room a conference at work

business future is

markets. The wave already through. Introduction Over have the been past clearly in the sweeping

without wires with a speed several times faster fastest than the cable

connection. We have attempted to review all the major aspects

decade, two trends identifiable

area

of

personal first, have

used in computing today. It's powerful. Wi-Fi networks use radio or technologies 802.11a to fast called IEEE 802.11b provide reliable, wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used to other, Internet, wired (which Wi-Fi operate GHz with radio an 11 or to and use connect the to IEEE computers to each secure,

computing; computers

gotten smaller and much more portable. Secondly, internet the has

increasingly become a bigger part of the daily many especially students. two trends routines of people, college The have

combination of these paved the way for the introduction of a fast and reliable so wireless networking infrastructure their computers cables. that people can use portable without

networks

802.3 or Ethernet). networks in the bands, Mbps 54

unlicensed 2.4 and 5

being restrained by

(802.11b)

Mbps (802.11a) data rate or with products that contain both

What is WiFi ? WiFi is just one aspect of wireless networking

bands (dual band), so they can provide real-world performance similar

to the basic 10BaseT wired networks many Ethernet used in WiFi offices.

in

the

$200 while cards Once the you

price the will you access card can to about

range network cost $100. have the

on the other hand is a term used for a specific protocol to network computer network. industry term your or The for computer to another

point configured and network you installed, your

transmit data from computer the base station up to 150 feet away at 10 MBps with no cables. Basics of Wireless Networking Wi-Fi The first wireless created in at LAN in at was the and

WiFi is 802.11b and it is also known as "Airport", an Apple branded the technology.There are two main to a an components you will name for

WiFi network. First, need the "access (called point" "base

University of Hawaii 1971.Researches the university radio with a bistar that technology

station" with Apple's Airport technology). Second, installed computer. you in will your Access need a network card

combined technology network to create

directional network

points generally run

connected workstations four islands.

seven over

products using the 802.11b which protocol in operated

ALOHNET, as it was called, made no use of phone lines or satellites. then, wireless into classrooms, technology homes, coffee Since

the 2.4 GHz range and was capable of transmitting speeds megabits protocol released with speeds megabits was was in of at 11 per also 1999,

second. The 802.11a

has made its way

operating at 5.8 GHz transmissions of 54 per

houses, restaurants, airports, city parks and campuses. In 1997, the Institute of Electrical and Engineers drafted the 802.11 standard for wireless local area networking. In 1999, networking hardware companies accepted manufacturing the standard and began Electronic (IEEE) college

second, but its cost prohibitively in offices 802.11b transmission and there types in are of the high.Most components homes the solid speeds general, three available and

today are based on protocol, due to its

reasonable price. In

wireless components consumer or small

business today. First,

market there These are

hosts for all of the wireless hosts within its range. in of Most points the more access available number advanced dynamically

are wireless network adapters. adapters

available in PCMCIA, PCI, USB, and even Compact Flash. Installation of one of these adapters into a host allows that host communicate other equipped wireless adapters, wireless points. Wireless points base have sort of are stations a access small that wired or to with with network with access machines

market today have a features, assign

such as the ability to IP addresses to their wireless clients, the ability network translation traffic capability, packet abilities. Additionally, access use Ethernet that they may used be in have hub many points an wired or to perform address (i.e.

function as a router), encryption and filtering

available for home additional

connection to some supporting An will network infrastructure. access point

switch built in, such

provide connectivity to the wired network and to other wireless

conjunction pre-existing

with

devices connected

can in

be two

wired

network.Finally, wireless bridges will connect a wired network directly to a wireless network. A bridge, will by in general, one connect

basic topologies. First, they can be connected in a star topology, involves all of the a wireless hosts or and which

network to another selectively data forwarding bridge that destined

communicating with central host, point, to other. is the wireless access never each This most common network topology. Wireless hosts can also directly other, use point, they range another. mesh ad-hoc topology of communicate with without an as are of long each the as one This or access within

across itself if the determines the data for is the

network on its other side. In the wireless world, it is often helpful to think of a wireless bridge as a wireless cord extension when device, have effect the as that,

attached to a wired Ethernet would same

connecting the wired device directly to a port on an access point. Wireless

topology, known as networking,

is less common, but

7

sometimes more

much

network is simply the internet. Most home or small business pre-existing have components another, accommodate networks wired some which, cannot a will either have a network in place or

convenient than star topology requires hosts themselves. A home or office network made out of these components typically will use In a office have network installed, only with access access to of a a will central The some variant of the star topology. purely home hosts wireless adapters and the or will wireless since no it more

hardware than the

for one reason or

wireless adapter. In this case, a mixed network topology is necessary adapter. It network should

network, all of the

also be noted that the wireless router in must be a model that contains a wired Ethernet hub or switch of some kind. Finally, in a variant of the Mixed

communicate point.

point has a direct connection in the case or wired network, and home small

business, this wired

Environment network, component cannot wireless might physical that is using network. be or a an a a or

With networking, wasnt because a a

wired this concern third

entire network that support in adapter location difficult a In

party would have to have physical access to a network in order to intercept traffic.

impossible to reach wired this

case, the PlayStation 2 is such a device. To reach point reach the and it, a wireless bridge can access supply robIn combat problem, includes the order to this 802.11b wired

access to the rest of the network and to the Internet. Clearly, one of the biggest problems associated with a wireless With a network is that of security. medium of air, any wireless traffic can easily be intercepted by any number of malicious entities.

equivalency protocol (WEP). WEP has two main functions. disallows unauthorized access to the wireless network. That is, a wireless host would have WEP to have the in
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theoretical First, it

password

order to become a member wireless of the network.

all ways of making a given view. In wireless large or network hidden from dynamic spots) make network difficult, completely impossible. there other are a Thus, few to networks these use if of can the not

Secondly, it encrypts all packets so that they cannot be read if they are WEP a strong intercepted. Unfortunately, doesnt very encryption algorithm, and it can be broken by anyone who has the time and the means to intercept a great deal of data from the network. There ways traffic eyes are to from of other protect prying hackers. employ

(such as public hot

extremely

ways

protect traffic over a wireless link: all the same can ways be traffic protected

over a wired link. The use of secure shell (SSH) instead of telnet, layer secure (SSL) and private socket

Changing administrative passwords, disabling DHCP, network advertisement, enabling and MAC disabling

for web and e-mail transactions, virtual

networks (VPN) will all make data harder to intercept. 802.11x in Depth

address filtering are

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The IEEE 802.11 standard, much like other standards Ethernet, small to 802.x such as is medium such an a It

impulses transmitted copper cables. quite wired adapter. carry wired these much complicated the wires use removed. out It all or A over optical wireless to a

network adapter is similar network must the

designed for use in geographical distributions, a restaurant, terminal, or city. as a home, an office, airline town

same actions as its counterpart; some of are more when are 802.11 the basic as adapters: Sense actions however,

campus, or a small cannot be used to build, for example, a cross-country backbone or a satellite uplink. The goal of the 802.11 protocol layer is also in similar to other linkprotocols that its purpose is to control access to a shared medium. In this signals through case, is the radio space medium

adapters same algorithm Ethernet Carrier

Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD). CSMA/CD, In an

adapter will transmit as soon as it has data another found ready. host to If is be
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transmitted

instead of electrical

transmitting at the same time, a collision is said to have occurred, and both hosts will wait for a period of time and then retransmit. An Ethernet adapter resolves collisions on its shared medium by simply listening for another signal the its An some coming has across

out of transmission range. adapters just listen If were to the to the air, be in cases, would

radio signals coming through some would other adapters detectable, the not and collisions

remain silent even though there is no danger of collision. These two problems that arise because of hosts exposed problems. exchange information while exchange information with B and D but not A. If both A and C decide that they want to
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wire before its signal reached destination. have

802.11 adapter must algorithm to do the same. This presents a more complicated challenge wireless fact nodes that are in the scenario, some not

the of are

limited 802.11 the node B can with A

range

hidden node and

however, due to the

and C, but not D, C can

physically capable of communicating with other nodes on the network because simply they are

communicate with B, they have no way of detecting a collision because As signal does not not reach reach A. C and Cs signal does This A is means that

In

the

802.11 these are

protocol, problems

addressed using an algorithm called Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance, or MACA. In MACA, the sender of and a receiver wireless transmission exchange a number of control frames before any data is actually transmitted. These control frames let know any nearby that a is the (within range) nodes transmission occurring.First,

hidden with respect to C, and C is hidden with respect to A. On the other side of the issue, if B wants to transmit to node A, node C is aware of the transmission because it is within Bs range. However, it would be incorrect of C to assume that there would to be a D, that interfere from node C B. is collision if it tried to transmit because transmission wouldnt receive Thus, exposed. with As ability to

sender will transmit a Request to Send (RTS) frame to the receiver.Inside the RTS frame, there is a field that indicates how long the sender wishes control to over have the
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shared the data length

medium, of the the sent. it

points without losing connectivity. When a mobile host comes into network or not finds that its is it a current engages network in

which analogous to within

transmission that is about to be When gets the an receiver RTS,

satisfactory,

replies with a Clear to Send (CTS) frame which will echo back the length field from the RTS frame back to the sender. The formation access 802.11 of an

process called active scanning by which it can determine what access point to use. First, the node sends a Probe frame. All access points within range will reply with a Probe Response mobile frame. The

protocols role in the point-based

wireless network is to specify how the mobile determine access which point they nodes the with should The how host a can access

host will then select one of the access points from which it received a response (the choice can be based strength, criteria) it by sending the on signal response and an

associate. specifies mobile roam different

802.11 protocol also

time, or any other associate it self with Association Request frame access
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between

point of its choice. Finally, an When process the access point will reply with Association frame. entire completes, this Response

access as a

point,

such

supported mobile a from host Beacon an

transmission rates. If receives frame

access point that is more favorable than its current access point, it will send an Association Request frame to the new access passive scanning.Because of the complexities by the introduced instead node 802.11 more than field an of to point. This process is known as

the mobile node now has an access point with node move whom If decides to a from to a to new its communicate.

location, the signal strength current access point will lessen and it will again active point. engage scanning in to

use of access points direct node an is

find a new access Active scanning is not the only way a mobile host about Access can the find out access will

communication, frame

complicated Ethernet Control a

points in the area. points periodically send out Beacon frames that advertise capabilities of the the

frame.The

contains

number of subfields that are not shown in this diagram. The first is a 6-bit Type

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field that indicates if the frame is an RTS, CTS, ACK, or one of the types of frames used in the passive or active scanning It also 1-bit ToDS to four field two algorithms. contains fields called how the

addresses the status of

are the

interpreted based on previously mentioned ToDS and FromDS bits in the control reason needs account frame field. the so for could The frame many the have

and FromDS which indicate interpret address Duration

address fields is to possibility that the been sent along the distribution system. If this was the case, then the frame may have access which source would point, case need been in the to retransmitted by an

fields.The

indicates the length of the transmission. The SeqCtrl field is used by the protocol to control of the the sequence

delivery of frames. The payload is the actual data, and the CRC to field contains sure the the CRC check bits make frame is error-free. Finally, four there are

address

reflect the fact that frame was sent by the access point and not from the original mobile host. The same reasoning can be applied to explain the need for two

separate

address fields in the 802.11 frame. These

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destination addresses.If neither of the bits is set, that means that the frame was not sent along the distribution system. In this case, Addr1 is the address of the target node, and Addr2 is the address of the source node. If both of the bits are set, this means that the frame has been sent wireless another distribution system.In this case, Addr1 is the address of the final node, destination from node one to

the address of the access point that put the frame onto the distribution network on behalf of the original sender, and Addr4 is the address of the original only the source.If

ToDS bit is set, then the frame was put onto the distribution system by an access point by but doesnt access need to be taken off another point. This happens when a wireless host is the sender, but a wired host is the receiver. when Similarly, only the

wireless

node, but across the

the opposite is true FromDS bit is set. In either of these two cases, only 3 out of 4 of the addresses are used, depending on which has are been needed. The 802.11 protocol

Addr2 is the address of the access point that frame pulled off of the the

distribution network on behalf of the final receiver, Addr3 is

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extended since originally introduced. first three of these form, In it it

and was its was

encode and decode their data. Current Developments WiFi has an future. WiFi

adapted many times

designed to run over different types of physical media. Two media based were on radio

interesting

Currently 802.11a is being touted as the next "wireless networking solution". 802.11a is roughly faster, operates different thus it five times transmitting on will a not from

based, and one was diffused infrared. One of the radio-based solutions frequency to radio The based called sequence, receiver sequence which used hopping data spread-spectrum transmit

data at 54 MBps. It frequency

over pseudo-random frequencies. other radio solution, direct dictates have of a bits they

encounter as much intereference cordless phones and other appliances. However, because of this third 802.11b, transmitting only 50 feet. Using this technology will also the range that of of 802.11a is only one

that both sender and pseudorandom with

18

incur for

a the

cost card

of and

amplifiers larger their build networks

to

send and Some mobile cars

roughly $100 more another $100 for the access point. Some businesses are trying to find ways to capitalize on the WiFi For Starbucks shops be phenomenon. instance, coffee recently offering WiFi

their signal over a area signal. allow anyone to use

equipped with WiFi access points and drive to areas that are in need of free WiFi access. Some even engage in the practice chalking", spots where with they so of "war chalk have that wireless marking

announced they will service in its stores, charging $3 for 15 minutes of access to $50/mo. with a 500 for MB "unlimited minutes" transfer limit, and no roaming fees. There are also social movements involved with believe access people more WiFi. Some wireless should will be build

discovered networks

other users may also use these networks.

Conclusion fun new gadget for tech-heads to play with, actually advantages having network. a there are many to WiFi For
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free for all. These powerful

example, user much convenient his or may

home find to it use the at more

up

network.

Instead of having to worry about wiring each individual desk or office to the main server room, worry about goes which active, simply access give which where ports you enable point port and are can the and the

her in

laptop

computer bedroom

late

night and then move it to the den during the day. A corporate user may find it very beneficial at one to desk move have and to the freedom to work then another

configuration to any new user that may need access to the network. REFERENCES

without

having to deal with networking cables. A speaker will find it very useful to simply bring their laptop to the podium and give a presentation and not have to make sure the network is set up in that particular room, deal with the cables, etc. Another advantage is main the

So why should you consider using a wireless network? More than simply a Wi-Fi Timeline http://
1.

wifinetnews.com /archives/2002/0

simplicity of setting
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8/wifi_timeline.html Director y of US RV Parks offering WiFi hotspots http://

2.

www.wifirv.com/ hotspots/state.p hp
3.

Setting Pommer

up a hotspot
4.

, Hermann: Roa ming zwischen Wireless Local Area Networks. VD M Verlag, Saarbrcken 2008, ISBN 978-3-83648708-5.
5.

Los

Angeles Times

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