How Does Wireless Internet Work?

Experienced wireless-industry personnel are well aware that the term “wireless” covers a number of different types or systems. The everyday user of the Internet may be familiar with the convenience of wireless but may not have a detailed knowledge of its several types. Most users really don’t know how wireless works.

The list of different kinds of wireless includes Internet, satellite access, cellular systems and so on. All of these operate without some of the wires or cables that lead people to separate wireless from the cable or land-line telephone system.

What most people call “wireless” is based on signals that pass through the air – radio signals. Homes have some type of receiver so that they can get Internet access without a cable coming to the residence.
The provider of Internet access (Internet Service Provider or ISP) has to get the message/signal to a tower before it can be sent on to users.

This is accomplished through a cable that connects the provider to the tower or by radio-frequency signals that reach the tower. In fact, the ISP may get the signal to the final tower by going to other relay towers in between.

The signals must be able to reach the final receiver (and each tower) by what is known in the industry as line-of-sight. If some large, impenetrable object stands in the way, it might be difficult to get the signal. It may even be impossible.

When the signal does reach the end-user’s receiver it will be sent to the computer or other device by a cable. But between this receiver and the device there has to be a modem, which is short for modulate/demodulate. The information contained in the signal you receive has to be changed into something that the computer can use, just as the information that is sent must be changed (modulate) into something the network can use.

Different frequencies are used in certain cases, just as different radio stations broadcast on different frequencies. Rather than have hundreds of different cables strung on poles or buried in the ground so that the information can reach each user, the service providers use radio frequencies that are “picked up” by various receivers.

Certain companies build their transmitters and receivers so that they can access the frequencies the company uses. The sender also includes a security item often called encryption to protect the content of the signal.

It’s interesting to note that many histories of radio and communication without wires note that the term “wireless” was used decades ago to describe the concept of communicating without being connected by wires or cables. Many systems moved to cable and wire to avoid the problems with sending signals through bad weather etc. and to limit their systems to certain customers.

Today the older radio “wireless” standards have been replaced by newer wireless systems that are generally more reliable and have better quality. Today, individual computers have wireless cards (receivers) built in so that the user can access an Internet signal in many, many locations.

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