Introduction

Marconi would have been proud. Today, radiowaves carry much more than just sound. We share images, videos, memories, money, and history wirelessly. In the past few years, wireless networking has really revolutionized the concept of shared computing resources. No longer do we need to be tethered to an outlet to collaborate with our colleaugues. Intel would want you to believe that they invented wireless networking with their Centrino marketing, but they are just about the last ones to join the bandwagon.

We are going to look at one wireless networking solution from ASUS. There are many options out on the market and we will go over what you should be looking for as you look to get connected.

First, let’s talk about why you even need a wireless network. The most basic setup is to use it with your laptop to share files and your internet connection. At first it seems excessive to have a wireless network in your own home since you probably already have a desktop attached to the internet. Trust me, it only seems excessive until you find yourself surfing the web on your laptop while watching television, it makes for instantaneous verification of certain too good to be true claims. In addition you can setup a work area in any corner of your home, on the kitchen table, in the living room, or outside on your balcony. This freedom to work anywhere and at anytime increases your productivity quite a bit.

Going beyond this simple network topology, we can picture having a wireless ethernet adapter in our home theater PC. Most of the time, your entertainment center is not the same room as your bedroom or office. Before, we had to run large cords of ethernet cables from one room to another to share files. This often involved drilling through walls, removing carpet or baseboards, and lots of spare time. With wireless networks you can achieve the same connectivity with much less labor. Now we come to our other important question, do wireless networks provide adequate performance for video streaming and other high performance applications.

As with everything we need to first go over some of the standards for wireless networking.