géraldine berger-yvon cournoyer wrote:

What does wi-fi means in standard English? Please.
Yvon.

Chad Robinson wrote:

It stands for "wireless fidelity" and is a useless but catchy term. Basically,
it refers to a family of wireless protocols, 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g.
'b' is the standard, provides up to 11Mbps of throughput, and is supported by
just about everything. 'a' and 'g' are somewhat faster (up to 54Mbps) but
suffer from decreased range, increase power usage, etc.

You don't really need to know much about wireless to get it to work except
what letter it is, a, b, or g. Your card must match the access point (the
device which acts as the provider for wireless traffic, like a short-range
cell phone tower). There are access points that support multiple standards,
and cards that do as well. For example, it's not uncommon these days to buy
what's known as an 'a/b' or 'a/b/g' card. (Said as 'AyBee', nobody says the
slash.) It's sort of like cell phones - there are competing standards (3G,
GPRS, ec.) but in general you don't really spend a lot of time thinking about
it, you just buy a tri-band phone for another 10 units of local currency and
call it a day.

Access points run from $20-$200 depending on features, and cards run $10-$100
also based on features.

Regards,
Chad

 
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