Untangling Wireless

By Sean Downey

In the past three years, high-speed wireless has broken free from the long-delayed promises of cell-phone providers to roam unhindered across the open spectrum. With the availability of $100 access points, and the growing popularity of open-access hot spots at airports, hotels and McDonald’s, Wi-Fi networks are becoming as common as french fries. While not as popular, Bluetooth is also finding its way into more devices as a means of accomplishing simple tasks without connecting to a network.

When it comes to unwiring, both technologies have their strong points. They both replace the vast assortment of wires that clutter our lives with radio transmitters and receivers that share data between a wide range of devices. Bluetooth can beam a document directly from a laptop to a printer, or pull down e-mail through a cell phone and send it to a PDA. And Wi-Fi can network the entire house, connecting the living room and the bedroom to the broadband connection in the den, taking the Internet wherever you need it to be. And these wireless technologies are simple enough that you don’t need your own personal IT guy to set them up. But before you plunk down your tax return on a load of new toys, there are a few things you need to know about wireless care and maintenance.

How to Classify Wi-Fi

In order to set up a Wi-Fi network, you’re going to need an access point. Without one, your laptop won’t make a connection with your PC no matter how much you rub them against each other. Wi-Fi is structured like the Ethernet networks that string together computers in just about every office building in the country. Each access point, or base station, creates a wireless local area network (WLAN) and manages the traffic between every device that connects to it. A single access point can cover about 150 feet if nothing’s in the way, but much less if there are walls and floors obstructing the signal. You’ll also need to pick up a wireless network adapter or Ethernet bridge for each device that will connect to your wireless LAN.

While you’re out shopping, keep in mind that Wi-Fi comes in three different flavors, and not all of them are compatible. The first two Wi-Fi standards — 802.11a and 802.11b — weren’t designed with interoperability in mind. They work at different frequencies (2.4 GHz verses 5 to 6 GHz, respectively) and move data at different speeds. Even though 802.11b is much slower than 802.11a, it has managed to achieve much wider adoption, because b hardware is much cheaper. Both flavors of Wi-Fi move data at faster-than-broadband speed, typically 4 Mbps or so for 802.11b, and 20 Mbps for 802.11a. These are the data rates your network will likely achieve, not the perfect wireless transmission rates advertised on the fronts of boxes. According to the spec sheets, 802.11b should transmit data at 11 Mbps and 802.11a should sport throughputs up to 54 Mbps, but you’d be hard-pressed to go that fast outside of a lab.

At this point, most of the Wi-Fi hardware stocking the shelves is distinctly b-flavored, but that should all change this year. The recently released 802.11g standard was created to be backwards-compatible with 802.11b, yet run as fast as 802.11a. Both b and g operate in the same frequency range, but 802.11g hardware is four to five times faster.

If you want to share a broadband signal from a cable or DSL modem across your wireless network, look for an access point that also works as a router. Routers connect and manage the link between two separate networks. In Wi-Fi’s case, they link the wireless network to the wide area network of an Internet provider. Access points such as the Linksys Wireless G Broadband Router provide a single gateway to the outside world while keeping the specifics of your internal network hidden. Every device that connects to the router gains access to the Internet through a single broadband connection. Most access-point routers even have built-in firewalls to keep hackers out.

It’s About Networking

To set up a Wi-Fi network, all you have to do is connect the access point to the DSL or cable modem and turn it on. Unless your broadband provider requires you to enter special settings to connect, the access point will automatically configure itself, grab an IP address and start broadcasting its location. As you install wireless adapters into your computer or laptop, each device will see the network and — in most cases — automatically connect to it.

After your network juices are flowing, each device will go through a different process to connect — the newer the device, the simpler the steps. Specifically, an Apple Titanium notebook requires nothing more than turning the computer on and selecting which network you want to connect to from a drop-down menu. Both Mac OS X and Windows XP have been developed with wireless in mind; they have built-in utilities that not only notice the availability of wireless networks in the immediate area, but also tell you which one has the strongest signal. If you’re running an older version of Windows or Mac OS, the connection process can be a little hairier. You’ll need to install the client software that comes with your network adapter in order to sniff out and maintain a connection to the network. With any Wi-Fi network, how-ever, it’s definitely a good idea to keep a wired connection between your access point and your PC, just in case you run into problems getting your wireless devices to see the Wi-Fi network.

When it comes to connecting to an access point, there are only two things that matter: range and reception. Each Wi-Fi device or network card is a tiny radio receiver that’s trying to tune in the best signal from the access point. A poor signal means lower connection speeds. Since the signal that comes from the access point isn’t the same in all directions, try experimenting with moving the base station and shifting its antennas around to increase the signal strength. With every Wi-Fi network there’s a distance at which the signal starts to drop off no matter what you do. Step beyond 100 feet from an 802.11b or 802.11g access point and your throughput speeds will drop significantly, and continue to decline the further you move away. With 802.11a this happens at 25 feet and you’ll be lucky to get any signal at all beyond 75. With a range of 150 feet, b and g access points should cover your entire house.

Unless you have some sort of security enabled, you don’t have to go through any log-in procedure to connect to a Wi-Fi network. The process works the same for virtually any device you’re trying to connect. One of the reasons Wi-Fi is becoming so popular is because it’s so simple — with Wi-Fi, when your computer is on and everything is connected, seeing the network should be no problem. Of course, if you can see it, so can everyone else, which leads to other problems.

Securing the Perimeter

In spite of all its positive features and straightforward setup, Wi-Fi isn’t as secure as wired networks simply because any user can tune in to a wireless transmission if he or she knows what to listen for. If you don’t mind becoming the neighborhood hot spot for wireless junkies, leave your router as it is. But if security is an issue, and you want to protect your network from Internet hitchhikers and hackers, there are a few steps you can take to ensure relative safety.

First off, it’s essential to the security of your Wi-Fi network to give your access point a unique name, or SSID. Like most devices, routers come with a default name, so you have to manually change it by logging onto the access point using your Web browser. The new identity will help prevent roving Wi-Fi-ers from leeching off your network by searching for the default, but unless you turn off SSID broadcasting, your access point will continue shouting its name to any device within range. Silencing your access point is somewhat problematic, though, since some of your devices will have trouble maintaining connectivity without SSID broadcasting turned on. When your wireless network is invisible to strangers, it tends to be invisible to you, too. Each device on the network will need to be hard-wired with the exact SSID you’ve chosen for your access point, which isn’t always possible. If turning off broadcasting causes more problems than it solves, just switch it back on.

Just like the SSID, there’s a default password like “admin” that comes with the access point, which is often easy to guess. So one obvious way to keep outsiders from hijacking your network is to change the password for the access point’s administration account. Although this will keep the bulk of troublemakers from reconfiguring your network with ease, it won’t stop hard-core hackers from breaking in. You can also limit your risk by changing passwords regularly or restricting access to designated computers, as identified by their unique hardware addresses.

By the end of 2003, you will likely see a new standard of security for Wi-Fi, but in the meantime, the best way to secure your network is by using wired equivalent privacy, or WEP. WEP encrypts data both to and from each device and the access point, making it extremely difficult for a bandwidth pirate to jump onboard. With WEP turned on, you have to enter a long hexadecimal key before connecting a device to the wireless network.

Even though WEP does a good job of scrambling your Wi-Fi network’s transmissions, it suffers from vulnerabilities that allow an eavesdropper to gain access using the right software and a lot of work. So the Wi-Fi wizards have come up with a much more robust system of encryption called WPA, which should be ready for action by the end of the year. Manufacturers will provide firmware upgrades for their wireless gear as soon as the new encryption system is approved.

Hi-Fi Wi-Fi

Once your wireless network is in place and everything is secure, you can fully realize the potential of Wi-Fi. Sure, answering your e-mail from a lawn chair or browsing the Web from the bathroom is a liberating experience, but Wi-Fi is capable of much more. Just think what would happen if you connected the entertainment center in your living room to a wireless network. You could wirelessly pipe MP3s through your stereo system. And you’d be able to take your PlayStation 2 online without running a trail of cable underneath your carpet. Someday you’ll even be able to stream video directly from the Web to your TV.

There is a growing class of A/V receivers that connects, physically or wirelessly, to home networks to serve up digital files such as MP3s. At this point, most of these digital media receivers come from companies that aren’t normally known for audio equipment, such as HP, Motorola and Dell. As the market for digital media receivers matures, more traditional audio companies will get into the act. A prime example is the Onkyo NC-500 Network Receiver. It catalogs and plays any MP3s it finds on PCs connected to the network, and streams Internet radio through a broadband connection. Unfortunately, the NC-500 isn’t wireless.

Of course, neither is the new online adapter for the PlayStation 2. But the benefit of hooking up your PlayStation is that you can challenge your buddy in Ireland to a Madden 2002 duel, or spend hours playing EverQuest with an elf named Heinrich from Norway. A couple of wireless Ethernet bridges puts both your PlayStation 2 and digital media receiver on to the Wi-Fi network. But an Ethernet bridge can be a little tricky to set up. You can’t just plug it into your PlayStation 2 and wait for it to find your network. You need to first connect the Ethernet bridge to your PC and configure it for your particular Wi-Fi settings. This means entering the correct SSID and WEP encryption key. Once it’s configured, just plug it into your PlayStation or receiver and go to town blasting the sounds of world music or bad guys.

When the Stars Go Bluetooth

Bluetooth picks up where Wi-Fi leaves off. It’s been in development for nearly five years, and people are finally finding useful applications for it. What Bluetooth does, it does well, which is point-to-point connections between two devices, such as linking a laptop to a cell phone, for example. By far, the most popular use of Bluetooth is in allowing people to use hands-free headsets with their cell phones. It can also be useful when you aren’t in a place where you can log on to a network, wired or wireless, you can always get online from wherever you are and pull down your e-mail with a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone. Or, if you have a document on a handheld that you need to print, you can beam it to a Bluetooth-enabled printer and voilà!

Bluetooth is ideal for accomplishing simple tasks with relative ease and speed. Think of it as an on-the-fly cable replacement that allows you to sync data and send and receive files. Products like the Palm Tungsten T handheld make excellent use of Bluetooth by wirelessly sending data from one PDA to another and synchronizing with a PC. Paired with a Bluetooth-enabled GPRS phone, the Tungsten T gives wireless e-mail devices such as the Blackberry a run for their money.

However, an always-on personal area network isn’t the best application for Bluetooth and certainly isn’t what it was designed for, because it has little or no security to offer other than simple password protection. Your cell phone, PDA and laptop don’t automat-ically synchronize data between them; rather, you have to pair up the devices and sign off on each transaction. But Wi-Fi and Bluetooth weren’t meant to be two exclusive alternatives because they have different strengths and uses — the two can work together to achieve perfect wireless harmony.

No Strings Attached

Wireless is just taking off, and, as more and more devices become Wi-Fi- and Bluetooth-enabled, its capabilities will only continue to grow. Some day your alarm clock will tell your coffee maker to brew a fresh pot, and your PDA will program your TiVo to record American Idol and add it to the video library stored on your computer. But first, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth need to get through some growing pains. There are security problems that need to be addressed (and automated), as well as interoperability issues that need to be resolved. The number of Wi-Fi standards will need to be replaced by single, multi-band product lines that manage all wireless communications. But even with these hurdles to be overcome, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are reshaping the way our tools work together, rather than adapting to the constraints of a wired world.



Linksys Wireless

Ethernet Bridge

Turns the Ethernet port

of a PlayStation 2′s network

adapter or a digital audio

receiver into a Wi-Fi

connection.

$119, www.linksys.com

Apple PowerBook G4

A super-slick notebook

with built-in 802.11g and

Bluetooth, and an operating

system that makes the

most of them

$2,799, www.apple.com

SonyEricsson T68i

Almost all other Bluetooth

devices support this

petite GSM/GPRS phone

for getting online on the go.

Price depends on carrier,

www.sonyericsson.com