WiFi

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(a.k.a Wireless Networking or 802.11)

WiFi (which stands for Wireless Fidelity) is a way to wirelessly connect your computer to a network. (WiFi should not be confused with bluetooth which is a wireless standard designed to connect peripherals like mice, keyboards, and printers.)

802.11a/b/g?! What do all these numbers mean?!

The 802.11 garbage is simply the catchy name of a general industry standard for wireless networking (thank you, engineers). The letter(s) directly following this are the important part.

A wireless networks come in a , b , and g flavors with both g and a supporting transfers up to 54 Mb/second and b supporting transfers up to 11 Mb/second*. b and g networks interoperate, so if you buy a card that supports 802.11g you will be able to connect to 802.11b networks.

The Claremont Colleges wireless network is a b type network (although it has a few isolated g nodes), so you want a network card that supports at least b transfer rates (almost all do). If you feel like it, go ahead and buy a card that also supports g speeds (802.11b/g), but this won't make your transfer speed with CINE any faster.

However, if you want to buy a wireless router of your own that is g compliant, by all means get a g compatible wireless card. Just keep in mind that if anyone with a b card tries to connect to your network, it'll cut your connection speeds down to b level as well (so you might want to password-protect your mini wireless network).

It should probably be noted that if you're just surfing the web, you won't be able to notice a difference between b and g transfers, since you'll never need to receive data at the kind of speeds we're talking about. The only time you should ever notice a difference would be when you transfering huge files off like movies or program installers off the network.

You should not spend extra to buy an 802.11a card unless you know you need it. 802.11a networks are relatively rare due to their incompatibility with 802.11b/g networks which were available in the market first. Additionally due to some differences in the protocol design, 802.11a has shorter range.

* Note that the lower-case b stands for mega bits, not mega bytes. There are 8 bits in a byte, so this equates to 6.75 MB/s and 1.375 MB/s, respectively. This is an old marketing trick to make the numbers seem "larger."

802.11n

There's a new n standard coming out soon that promises faster transfer speeds and greater compatibility with other speed types. In response, some companies are selling "pre-n" wireless cards that claim that they're n-compliant. Unfortunately, the specifics of the n standard haven't been completely nailed down yet, so these cards may or may not actually work with n networks when the standard is actually released. Pre-n cards are pretty rare right now, but don't get confused if you see them being offered.