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How does WiFi work to provide a wireless Internet connection?

How does WiFi work to provide a wireless Internet connection?

When our Internet connection is permanently interrupted or at certain times it becomes slow, we do not realize, but many times the problem is in our router, since it may have a frequency that is not correct.

Generally it happens that in large cities the Internet speed is lower than for less densely populated areas . This happens due to the occupation and overlapping of the low frequency channels of the routing equipment.

Next, we will show you everything you need to know so that you have the best Internet connection through a WiFi network . With this article you will be able to know the difference between a router and a modem, as well as how the frequency influences the connection quality.

What is a WiFi router and what is it for?

Qué es un router WiFi y para qué sirve

A WiFi router is an electronic device whose mission is to choose the best route to receive and send data through radio waves by choosing a network based on an administrative distance criterion.

Thanks to this protocol or set of routing rules, the hardware can connect two or more devices to each other and with this you can obtain the most appropriate route to efficiently manage the sending and data reception.

That is, the routing device acts on two planes, one is a control plane with which it seeks the most effective output of the data, and the other is a forwarding plane, because of this the router is responsible for receive that data and send it to the devices in another interface.

We don’t have to confuse these two planes because forwarding consists of receiving a data packet and delivering it to the output indicated by a table , while the control plane is that it is the procedure of making that table.

While it is true that the router has different uses, we will dedicate ourselves to the use of Internet distribution in our home or office.

In this way we can say that a WiFi router works as a wireless access door, that is, it is responsible for receiving Internet through the modem and then distributes the signal through radio waves between the different nodes or components of a non-wired network.

There are different types of router, but the most commonly used for homes is the mixed one which has connections via cables and also wireless.

The speed of these devices is 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz providing a connection speed of up to 70 Mbps at 1 Gbps respectively. We will detail this topic in the last part of our post.

Where does the router’s Internet come from?

¿De dónde viene el internet del router?

Many people get confused believing that the router is the one that emits the Internet signal . This is not the case because the equipment in charge of this function is the modem, which receives Internet from our operator through a cable that can be coaxial, ADSL or optical fiber.

That is, the router is converting the signal that comes from the modem and distributing that signal to the different devices that can be connected to it, while the modem is responsible for receiving the Internet.

In other words, the routing device receives and sends information via radio waves to our computer and at the same time receives instructions from our > PC to encode and send them to the server through an Ethernet cable.

Once the server translated the requested data, it sends it back to our computer, but first it will have to go through the router that receives that information from the server through the Ethernet cable and must translate the server information.

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How does the router work to create a wireless Internet signal?

Cómo funciona el router para crear una señal de internet inalámbrico

We can say that the routing team is a translator and mediator between a device, which is connected to the WiFi network and the server of the website we want to access.

The operation of a router to create an Internet signal has the following stages:

Establish connection and authentication

At this time the wireless network devices connect and negotiate all the parameters to link through authentication protocols to identify the user.

Although authentication is not mandatory, but it is recommended since rules are also used to set the encrypted password to access the router.

Internet reception

The router is connected to the modem, which is responsible for receiving the Internet signal through an Ethernet cable. At this time the routing hardware encrypts that data for later distribution.

Signal coding protocol

Through a pre-established protocol, the PPP ( “Point to Point Protocol” ) or “Point-to-point protocol” encodes the information , compress and authenticate it.

This way you are ready to deliver the data required by the different nodes of the wireless network.

Choosing the best route

When you have the conditions to distribute the data, you start looking for the best route, based on an administrative distance criterion, for the delivery of the package. That is, it looks for the efficiency between the transmission and reception between the router and the device in charge of receiving the data.

Data packet delivery

The best route chosen, deliver the data packets through radio waves to the computer or any device that made the request for information to the Internet server.

Reverse path

In the same way, when an electronic device needs an Internet connection, it communicates with the router, which thanks to the set of routing rules receives and sends the information by performing a translator and mediator job between the computer and the page server.

What is the frequency of a WiFi signal and how much does it influence the WiFi signal? connection quality?

The frequency of a WiFi signal is the speed with which they are transmitted and received , from port to port, data packets between the different nodes of the network wireless To control this transmission speed there are different protocols so that, when they are met, they can have greater efficiency.

There are currently two widely used frequency bands, both working with 802.11 standards. These two bands are 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Where GHz is the unit of measurement that quantifies the period of oscillation in a nanosecond and Hz equals 10 raised to the ninth power, that is 1,000,000,000 (one billion).

If we have to talk about 2.4 GHz, we can say that it is the modulated signal that reaches the reception devices based on 13 channels (plus 1 channel, which is the transfer center) of 22 MHz each. Being low frequency its range is greater and its speed is around 50 Mbps to 70 Mbps .

Qué es la frecuencia de una señal WiFi y qué tanto influye en la calidad de la conexión

The characteristic of these channels is that they are narrow and often overlap with other channels of the same frequency that are close to our router.

In this way when there are many routers operating in a nearby area, the speed and Internet connection becomes slow since many data packets are being transmitted on the same channels. In this way we can say that the frequency of WiFi directly influences the quality of Internet connection .

It should also be taken into account that there are different electronic devices that are close to the router , such as a wireless mouse or a keyboard with no wired connection, which usually transmit in this low frequency , therefore, occupy some of the 13 channels of the 2.4 GHZ frequency, causing them to be occupied even more. This congestion increases exponentially when it comes to densely inhabited places.

A different case is the other signal frequency that is 5 GHz , where it works with standards equal to or greater than 802.11 n, that is, with 802.11 ac . It works with 24 channels of 20 MHz, the channels can be used without any risk of interference.

This kind of frequency when transmitting with many more channels, prevents overlap in urban areas. Its transmission speed can reach up to 1 Gbps , but unlike the previous frequency, it does not reach so far from where the router is located .

If we need to compare the actual speed we have in our house with the one we hire our service operator, we need to do a speed test.

This function is also very useful when we need to know if there are people or intruders connected to our network in an unauthorized way because in this way they would occupy more spaces in the channels and generate a slow connection.

For these two situations there is an efficient and very practical tool, which is the speed test of our Internet connection . Thanks to this function we can know exactly what our connection speed is.

For this we leave you our speed test