8. Wireless network

An alternative to setting up a network with copper or fibre cable is Wireless. Connection between computer and router is achieved using radio waves.

This has the strong advantage of not requiring cables to be laid through a building. On the other hand radio is very prone to being weakened by walls and other objects.

The bandwidth of a wireless network is lower than a physical network.

For example the 802.11g wireless standard states a theoretical bandwidth of 54 Mbits/s.

In practice the available bandwidth is much lower than this because of a weakened signal - expect about 12 Mbits/s in a typical installation covering up to 50 yards away from the wireless access point.

As I write this, my wireless connection is 13 Mbit/s and the WAP is only 20 yards away but there are walls in the way.

However, 13 Mbit/s is fine for most purposes except for high bandwidth applications such as video streaming.