Sharing Data and Devices on a Wireless Network

New opportunities for service revenue are in the air—literally! Wireless networking has penetrated deep into the market. Everyone from homeowners to enterprises is turning to untethered connections via Wi-Fi to connect devices, both to other devices and the Internet. Add to that the explosion of broadband connections in the home and small-business market, and new possibilities for sharing resources wirelessly are everywhere.

While much of today's wireless technology has become plug-and-play simple, complexity rears its ugly head once the user tries to set up networking capabilities, such as sharing printers or file folders. Here is where system builders can come to the rescue with knowledge, assistance, and billable services. In this TechBuilder recipe, I'll show you how to get these more advanced functions working on a wireless network.

But before you get started, first make sure the network you're working on has a good foundation. Range, speed, and reliability are the key factors. security comes into play, too.

Specifically, your users and clients should be using the latest 802.11g multiple-in, multiple-out (MiMo) technology. MiMo extends the range and throughput of a wireless network by using multiple antennas and dividing the wireless signal across them. The upside is a potential five-fold increase in range and throughput. The downside is that all wireless devices on the network must support MiMo to realize that potential. That said, MiMo-based devices are backward compatible with 802.11g and 802.11b, so compatibility should not be a problem. Plus, your customer will experience the best performance and range by standardizing on MiMo across their network.

On the security front, most Wi-Fi implementations start with a wireless router, a device that connects the broadband wide-area network (WAN) with the internal local-area network (LAN) for both wired and wireless connections. The router also protects the local network against external intrusions.

But security doesn’t end with the router; in fact, that's just the beginning. A secure network also uses encryption on the wireless signal. Otherwise, anyone in range of the wireless network would be able to access the network's equipment and shared files. Happily, today’s wireless routers support various levels of encryption, ranging from 64-bit WEP (wired equivalency protocol) to WPA (WiFi Protected Access).

With the basics out of the way, let’s set up our wireless network. Our aim is to allow three computers to share an Internet connection, printer, folders on a storage device, and folders on the hard drives.