PAPER ON

Authors::

T.ANUSHA A.APARNA LAKSHMI

III/IV B.Tech III/IV B.Tech

anusha_t4@yahoo.com aparna.aytha@gmail.com

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

PRIYADARSHINI COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

NELLORE-4
Abstract:

The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social
consequences of any medium...result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs
by each extension of us or by any new technology. This paper reviews the form of
wireless communication in which Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity; which is the latest
buzzword in THE IT world. Wi-Fi enabled computer network can carry data between
computers without using any cables. Wi-Fi functions through a transmitting antenna
which is usually linked to a DSL or high-speed land-based Internet connection and uses
radio waves to beam signals. Wi-Fi connections can be made up to 300 feet away from a
"hot spot"; An Access Point is also known as a “hotspot. The hotspot is build around the
network router. Communicating computers can be as much as 100 feet apart indoors o
even 200 feet outdoors. Thus the distance becomes imaginary and wire connections
become redundant. Wi-Fi provides users with mobile, broadband Internet access,
eliminating the need to be physically connected to a network. Most importantly wireless
networks are open to easy access by hackers or other tech savvy peeping toms, since
these networks are till date unencrypted.

1. INTRODUCTION

Wi-Fi, or Wireless Fidelity, is a term that is used generically to refer to any product or
service using any type of 802.11 technologies. Wi-Fi networks operate in the unlicensed
2.4 and 5 GHz radio bands, with an 11 Mbps (802.11b) or 54 Mbps (802.11a) data rate,
respectively.Wi-Fi enabled devices (laptops or PDAs) can send and receive data
wirelessly from any location equipped with Wi-Fi access. How? Access points, installed
within a Wi-Fi location, transmit an RF signal to Wi-Fi enabled devices that are within
range of the access point, which is about 300 feet. The speed of the transmission is
governed by the speed of the pipeline fed into the access point. T-Mobile HotSpot service
is unique in that every T-Mobile HotSpot service location is equipped with a full T-1
connection running to the access points. With T-Mobile HotSpot service, a customer,
once associated with the access point, can connect to the Internet and enjoy near T-1
speeds in the comfort of American Airlines Admirals Clubs, Starbucks coffeehouses,
Borders Books & Music stores and numerous airports.Wi-Fi (short for "wireless fidelity")
is the popular term for a high-frequency wireless local area network (WLAN). The Wi-Fi
technology is rapidly gaining acceptance in many companies as an alternative to a wired
LAN. It can also be installed for a home network.Wi-Fi is specified in the 802.11b
specification from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and is part
of a series of wireless specifications together with 802.11, 802.11a, and 802.11g. All four
standards use the Ethernet protocol and CSMA/CA (carrier sense multiple access with
collision avoidance) for path sharing. The 802.11b (Wi-Fi) technology operates in the 2.4
GHz range offering data speeds up to 11 megabits per second. The modulation used in
802.11 has historically been phase-shift keying (PSK). The modulation method selected
for 802.11b is known as complementary code keying (CCK), which allows higher data
speeds and is less susceptible to multipath-propagation interference. Unless adequately
protected, a Wi-Fi wireless LAN can be susceptible to access from the outside by
unauthorized users, some of whom have used the access as a free Internet connection.
(The activity of locating and exploiting security-exposed wireless LANs is commonly
Known as war driving and an identifying iconography has developed that is known as
warchalking.) Companies that have a wireless LAN are urged to add security safeguards
such as the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption standard, the setup and use of a
virtual private network (VPN) or IPsec, and a firewall or DMZ.
WiFi network can:
1. Connect to the internet.
2. Connect to multiple computers to each other and to your printer.
3. Can share high speed broadband cable or DSL connection.

2. CASE HISTORY

Wireless networking: Few people have a kind word to say about telecoms regulators. But
the success of Wi-Fi shows what can be achieved when regulators and technologists work
together it has as perhaps the signal success of the computer industry in the last few
years, a rare bright spot in a bubble-battered market: Wi-Fi, the short-range wireless
broadband technology. Among geeks, it has inspired a mania unseen since the days of the
internet boom. Tens of millions of Wi-Fi devices will be sold this year, including the
majority of laptop computers. Analysts predict that 100m people will be using Wi-Fi by
2006. Homes, offices, colleges and schools around the world have installed Wi-Fi
equipment to blanket their premises with wireless access to the internet. Wi-Fi access is
available in a growing number of coffee-shops, airports and hotels too. Yet merely five
years ago wireless networking was a niche technology. How did Wi-Fi get started, and
become so successful, in the depths of a downturn?

3. HOW DOES WI-FI W0RK?

The wide use of notebook and other portable computers has driven advances in wireless
networks. The most conmen use for a wireless network is to connect a single notebook
computer to a broadband internet connection. Wireless networks use either infrared or
radio-frequency transmissions to link these mobile computers to networks. Wifi networks
use radio technologies called IEEE 802.11b or 802.11a to provide a secure, fast, and
reliable wireless connection. IEEE stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, New York, which is a membership organization that includes engineers,
scientists and students in electronics and allied fields. It has more than 300,000 members
and is involved with setting standards for computers and communications. The
international standard for wireless networking uses a frequency of 2.4-2.4835GHz. These
frequencies are common in microwaves, and cord less phones.
Wi-Fi functions through a transmitting antenna which is usually linked to a DSL or high-
speed land-based Internet connection and uses radio waves to beam signals. Another
antenna, which is in the laptop or PC, catches the signal. The signal, usually l, has a range
of about 300 feet for most home connections. The farther the user is from the signal, the
slower the connection speed. Wireless LANS have capacity speeds from less than 1 Mbps
to 8 Mbps. Wi-Fi can easily be expanded in the home or business with the simple step of
plugging in a card or a USB connection to the new computer or other Wi-Fi certified
product. No cords or cables, or wires are necessary.

4. STANDARDS

Early development included industry-specific solutions and proprietary protocols, but at

the end of the 1990s these were replaced by standards, primarily the various versions of
IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) and HomeRF (2 Mbit/s, intended for home use). An alternative
ATM-like 5 GHz technology, HIPERLAN, appears less likely to succeed, due to political
and market factors. IEEE 802.11 denotes a set of Wireless LAN standards developed by
working group 11 of IEEE 802. The term is also used specifically for the original version;
to avoid confusion that is sometimes called "802.11 legacy". The 802.11 family currently
includes three separate protocols that focus on encoding (a, b, g); other standards in the
family (c-f, h-j, n) are service enhancement and extensions, or corrections to previous
specifications. 802.11b was the first widely accepted wireless networking standard
followed, paradoxically, by 802.11a and 802.11g
5. ADVANTAGES OF WI-FI
Many reliable and bug-free WiFi products on the market. Competition amongst vendors
has lowered prices considerably since their inception. While connected on a WiFi
network, it is possible to move about without breaking the network connection.
6. DISADVANTAGES OF WI-FI

The 802.11b and 802.11g flavors of Wi-Fi use the 2.4GHz spectrum, which is crowded
with other devices such as Bluetooth, microwave ovens, cordless phones, or video sender
devices, among many others. This may cause degradation in performance. Other devices
that use microwave frequencies can also cause degradation in performance, such as
certain types of cell phones. Power consumption is fairly high compared to other
standards, making battery life and heat a concern. Not always Configured properly by
user. Commonly uses Wired Equivalent Privacy protocol for protection (WEP is a
security protocol, specified in the IEEE Wi-Fi standard, 802.11b that is designed to
provide a WLAN with a level of security and privacy comparable to what is usually
expected of a wired LAN), though has been shown to be easily breakable. Newer wireless
solutions are slowly providing support for the superior Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)
protocol, though many systems still employ WEP.

7. APPLICATIONS

There may be metered access or with a pass for, for example, a day, month or year, valid
for one location or a whole chain. They are e.g. in coffee houses and airports around the
world. T-Mobile provides hotspots in many Starbucks Coffee houses in the US. Pacific
Century Cyber Works has a similar arrangement with Pacific Coffee in Hong Kong.
Other large hotspot providers in the US include Boingo (www.boingo.com), Wayport
(www.wayport.com) and iPass (www.ipass.com). . Sify (www.sify.com), India's largest
Internet service provider, has set up 120 wireless access points in Bangalore in hotels,
malls and government offices and many other applications. Compare Internet cafe. Many
airports, hotels, and fast-food facilities now offer public access to a Wi-Fi network.Wi-fi
uses ethernet protocol.
8 .PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Through the use of Wi-Fi, organizations can extend their Internet access across the
enterprise. From boardrooms to auditoriums, visitors and employees will be able perform
routine Internet tasks without the need to physically connect to cumbersome wires and
network plugs. Additionally, Wi-Fi can be applied in the following free or fee-based
methods: Fee based models for office buildings, high-rises and home developments
Outdoor facilities and campus models Large venue models for convention and tourist
facilities Self sustaining models for municipal Wi-Fi or community Wi-Fi Retail,
restaurants and shopping center ‘hot spots’ Transit (mobile) models for public
transportation, RV parks and marinas Setting up a hotspot in your home is very easy.
This can be done in one of two ways:
1. Purchase a Wireless Access Point and plug it into the Ethernet network.
2. If you are setting up a network in your home for the first time, or if you are upgrading,
buy a Wireless Access Point Router. Your hotspot should cover about 100 feet in all
directions. Setting up a wireless Hotspot is quite simple and there are two ways in which
you can go about doing it:
• If you already have an Ethernet network but want to add the wireless hotspot capability,
you can just purchase a Wireless Access Point and plug it into the Ethernet network.
• The second way is if you do not have an Ethernet Network, you can just buy a Wireless
Access Point Router. This box has the ability to: 1) connect to your cable modem or DSL
modem through a port, 2) a router which has DHCP capabilities, 3) an Ethernet hub, 4) a
firewall for security purposes and 5) a wireless access point. With this box you can
connect traditional network cables or you can just go wireless.

9. WI-FI SECURITY

Now that we know how to set up a hotspot lets look at the security vulnerabilities. WiFi
hotspots are either open to all or secure and only a few can access it. If a hotspot is open,
then anyone with a WiFi card can access the hotspot there is no need for any type of
identification. If it is a secure hotspot, then the user needs to know a WEP key to connect
to the WiFi network. The term WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy. WEP is an
encryption system for the data that the 802.11 protocol sends through the air. There are
two types of WEP: 64-bit encryption (40-bit) and 128-bit encryption (104-bit). The 40-bit
encryption was the original standard and was easily broken. The 128-bit encryption is the
more secure method of encryption and is what most people use if they enable WEP. For
any hotspot that is using WEP is inaccessible unless you have the WEP key. If you setup
a hotspot in your home, you should use 128-bit WEP key to prevent the neighbors from
peering into your network. It is important to recognize that wireless security is an end-to-
end requirement, and can be sub-divided into various security domains.

• Appliance domain security attempts to ensure that only authorized entities can use the
appliance, and access or modify the data stored on it.

• Network access domain security ensures that only authorized devices can connect to a
wireless network or service, and ensures data privacy and integrity over the wireless link.

• Network domain security addresses security of the infrastructure (voice and data)
networks that support a wireless network. Infrastructure networks are typically wired,
could include public networks, and could span networks owned by multiple carriers.

• Application domain security ensures that only safe and trusted applications can execute
on the appliance, and that transactions between applications executing on the client and
application servers across the Internet are secure. A well-known concern with the WAP
security architecture is the existence of a “security gap” at the wireless gateway, which
arises since the translation between different transport-layer security protocols causes
data to exist in decrypted form. This problem can be somewhat alleviated by maintaining
the WAP gateway within a secure network domain (e.g., behind the same firewall as the
web server). Alternatively, the use of an end-to-end security protocol between the
wireless handset and wired server eliminates this problem. For example, NTT DoCoMo’s
iMode service uses SSL to secure end-to-end connections, and the recently released WAP
2.0 specifications includes a new mode that uses standard Internet protocols
(HTTP/TLS/TCP/IP) between the wireless client and a server across the Internet.
10. FUTURE
The market is expected to grow as the benefits of WLAN are recognized. Frost and
Sullivan (a market consulting based in New York) estimate the WLAN market to have
been 0.3 billion US dollars in 1998 and 1.6 billion dollars in 2005. So far WLANs have
been installed primarily in warehouses and resellers, but are recently being installed in
various kinds of schools. Large future markets are estimated to be in health care,
educational institutes and corporate offices. In the business environment, meeting places,
public areas and side offices would be ideal for WLAN.
11. CONCLUSION

WiFi is definitely the technology of tomorrow. As technology and security undergo

advancements, more people are utilizing WiFi’s capabilities. For personal use, families
are able to use this technology so that several computers around the house can be
networked together. For small businesses, money is saved on expensive wiring. Larger
businesses do not need to worry about how to wire large buildings and as mentioned
before; employees can have more flexible work schedules. It is a sound investment
because the technology will continue to get better, especially if security concerns can be
curbed, which are paramount. Standards 802.11b and g are the most up and coming and a
drastic increase will be seen in these standards since they are sensible and efficient for
homes and small businesses. Since nearly all new laptops come with internal wireless
cards, or the feature is always an option, we will see a rise in the total number of wireless
LAN’s being set up and hotspots will grow increasingly popular. Businesses utilizing
them, such as Starbucks, have already seen the positive ramifications. Anyone interested
in getting ahead with the latest and greatest technologies should invest in the technology
of Wi-Fi, it is the movement of the future.
12. BIBLOGRAPHY
wi-fi technology by will wade Wireless LAN and its proprietary protocols by William
warren
www.tinyapps.com
www.ask.com
www.lycos.com
www.wired.com
www.wirelesslinks.com