I spent the last two days updating and reconfiguring my wireless network, and at least for the moment, everything seems to be working, save one item which I haven’t tried yet: changing the interface mode from 802.11b to 802.11g.
IEEE 802.11 refers to a set of standards for modulation techniques – the process of varying a radio signal to transmit information.
Both the 802.11b and 802.11g standards use the 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) band. b has a maximum raw data rate of 11 Mbit/s; the maximum raw data rate for g is 54 Mbit/s. Throughputs are 5.9 and 24.7, respectively, so in theory, g should be a lot faster than b, although apparently this is mitigated by a number of factors, including having a b device on the same network.
Okay.
I was able to get the wireless networking itself working a while back, but my Dell laptop couldn’t make the final connection to the Internet.
I seem to have solved this problem this morning by changing the WEP setting in the Airport Administration Utility.
WEP is yet another type of standard, a security protocol which has to do with encryption of data transmitted by radio waves, so it’s specific to wireless networks.
WEP has been superceded by WPA and WPA2.
Isn’t this all fascinating? I think so.
Anyway, even though this little journey into the world of radio transmissions did turn out to be edifying and had some indirect benefits, like forcing me to upgrade the OS on the iBook, I did lose a fair amount of productivity this week.
Luckily, I was able to get all the running around done in between “weather”.
The snow storm that threatened for Tuesday was (except for the morning commute) minor, and right now, it’s raining on an earlier deposit of sleet – nasty stuff, one definitely feels for school bus drivers and anyone else contending with it.