Wireless networking holds the promise to free your broadband connection to any computer in your home or business, but is not without risk.  Let's take a look at some of the problems with wireless networks and discuss the solutions so that you can implement a wireless network safely and painlessly.  Before we can begin we need a brief overview of wireless networking.

What is a wireless network?  Today's most common commercially available wireless networks are networks that use radio signals to communicate instead of phone, power, or network cabling.  There are many standards, but we'll only introduce the top four here as they all have about the same operating methods with slightly different frequency and speed characteristics.

IEEE 802.11 is a networking standard that defines wireless local area networks capable of carrying normally wired network communications.  Under that broad standard, several competing standards were adopted.  In alphabetical order for today's popular products, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11pre-n.

802.11a has a short range at 54 Mbps and supports both WEP (Wireless Equivalent Protocol) and WPA (WiFi Protected Access). security schemes.  This standard was primarily adopted by businesses looking for higher bandwidth than competing 802.11b systems.

802.11b has a somewhat longer range (roughly 100 meters outdoors), offers up to 11Mbps and also supports WEP or WPA security.  This standard was adopted by many home users and businesses due to its better range.

802.11g is backwards compatible with 802.11b (slows entire network to 802.11b speeds), has the same range, but offers 54 Mbps bandwidth.  It too supports WEP and WPA security.  This standard seems to be the most commonly deployed wireless equipment today.

802.11pre-n is not yet an approved standard, but substantially increases range using signal shaping technology based on 802.11g, runs at roughly 100 Mbps and adds support for both 802.11b and 802.11g to operate at native speeds without slowing down the entire network.  Advotech strongly recommends any pre-n deployments consist entirely of a single product vendor's line until the actual standard is released and multi-vendor products are WiFi certified for 802.11n.  Now, that we've covered the basics, we can discuss the first problem with Wireless networks.

The one thing all of these standards have in common is the security protocols.  Wireless networks, by their nature, are open to accept connections from other wireless devices.  This means anyone with a cheap wireless network card can hop on your network and and do their worst if security is not enabled.  Almost every wireless network product vendor ships their products without security enabled by default.  That's the first problem with wireless networks, but also fairly easy to correct.

Every wireless device in the market supports WEP, but with a 64 or 128 bit single shared key security method, WEP doesn't provide much security for those that have more robust security needs.  It is, however, adequate protection for a home to use in order to restrict access to their network.  It can be simply augmented by restricting connections to approved wireless MAC (Media Access Control) addresses only.

For those that need better security, WPA provides 256 bit encryption using either TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) or AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) (under pre-WPA2 standards) algorithms that use multiple rotating keys to prevent replay attacks.  This security can also be enhanced by performing user access validation prior to connections being allowed.  It is suitable for most business purposes.

Finally, on the security front, every one of these wireless networks broadcasts its name or SSID (Service Set IDentifier) to the world by default.  This name acts as a primary key before any other access authentication can take place.  Any device that doesn't know your SSID cannot access your network.  The SSID broadcasts that tell devices your SSID can be turned off, so that only someone that knows your network's SSID, or has captured and analyzed a logon will be able to access it.

Another problem wireless networks have is that they are prone to interference from both natural and man made sources.  All of these standards operate in the free 2.4Ghz range, which is essentially the home of a whole lot of man made equipment from cellular phones and cordless home phones, to microwave ovens.  These devices can and do interfere with the operation of wireless networks (usually temporarily), so if your communication needs are critical every moment, forget about a wireless network.  Otherwise, expect the occasional outage, but be sure to enable some form of security.

The last problem with wireless networks is range.  If you have a very large home, or business building, you may need multiple access points using WDS (Wireless Distribution Standard) to bridge them with the main broadband sharing access point.  Alternatively, you could try using higher gain antennas available at your local CompUSA to boost range.  Keep in mind that any solution that boosts signal strength like high gain antennas and amplifiers also tends to violate FCC rules about the impact of high power unregistered devices on a free frequency range.

In summary: Use one vendor's equipment for maximum compatibility, enable at least WEP security, plan for occasional outages, and extend range with multiple access points.  If this still sounds like more trouble than it's worth, then maybe a PowerLine  or HPNA (Home Phoneline Networking Alliance) based network might be more to your taste.