What Is a Wireless Network? Types of Wireless Network | Fortinet

The Components of a Wireless Network

How Does Wi-Fi Network Work?

A Wi-Fi based wireless network sends signals using radio waves (cellular phones and radios also transmit over radio waves, but at different frequencies and modulation).

In a typical Wi-Fi network, the AP (Access Point) will advertise the specific network that it offers connectivity to. This is called a Service Set Identifier (SSID) and it is what users see when they look at the list of available networks on their phone or laptops.  The AP advertises this by way of transmissions called beacons.  The beacon can be thought of as an announcement saying “Hello, I have a network here, if it’s the network you’re looking for, you can join”.

A client device receives the beacon transmitted by the AP and converts the RF signal into digital data, then that data is passed along to the device for interpretation.  If the user wants to connect to the network, it can send messages to the AP trying to join and (when security is enabled) providing the proper credentials to prove they have the right to join.  These processes are known as Association & Authentication.  If either of these fail, the device will not successfully join the network and will be unable to further communicate with the AP.

Assuming all goes well, we come to the part that is the end user’s ultimate goal: passing data.  Data from the client (or from the AP to the client) is converted from digital data into an RF modulated signal and transmitted over the air.  When received, this is de-modulated, converted back to digital data, and then forwarded along to its destination (often the internet or a resource on the larger internal network).

Wi-Fi communication is only approved to transmit on specific frequencies, in most parts of the world these are the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands, although many countries are now adding 6GHz frequencies as well. These frequency bands are not the same that cellular networks use, so cell phones and Wi-Fi are not in competition for use of the same frequencies.  However that does not mean that there are not other technologies that can operate in these bands.  In the 2.4GHz band in particular there are many products, including Bluetooth, ZigBee, cordless keyboards, and A/V equipment just to name a small subset that does use the same frequencies and can cause interference.