Hot Spots: Understanding Limits

Internet Access Here Sign

Image by Steve Rhode via Flickr

Limitation is an unfortunate word — and one you often refuse to consider. Taming impulses is tedious; accepting boundaries is dull. You choose instead to embrace the notion of endless possibilities…. especially within the online world.

The Internet is a cluster of exchanges and unseen encryptions. There are — you believe — no restrictions within it. And so you find yourself surprised when a network suddenly… fails: stripping you of access and ease.

Your router isn’t without fault. It instead demands a hot spot.

Explained simply: a hot spot is a designated area that provides users with ways to enter the Internet through wireless connections. They act as central hubs — with devices able to intercept their signals without requiring authentication or passwords. They are most commonly found within popular shops or attractions, where crowds are certain to gather.

Assuming that they can be reached at any location is a mistake, however. Distance defines hot spots: with their range tempered to a carefully maintained length (often no more than 100 feet). Users hovering beyond the limits won’t receive Internet access. They will instead be denied.

It’s important to remember therefore that even the strongest routers can’t manufacture signals in dead space — the miles that offer no connections, however weak. Hot spots must instead be sought. Choosing heavily populated areas provides the best chance for finding them (though it is recommended to avoid residential streets, as these signals are typically password protected).

Hot spots offer convenience. They must first simply be found.

 

The Confounding Concept of Wireless Internet

Fifty years ago it would have seemed like something out of a science fiction novel that computers or any electronic device could be connected to a network without a cable. The idea of wireless is abstract and mystifying, but only if the technology isn’t understood. Once it’s realized that a wireless connection uses the same types of electromagnetic waves that radios use, the concept becomes less absurd.

The Internet connection obtained at coffee shops and throughout your house doesn’t just appear out of the blue, however. In order to connect to the Internet wirelessly, you’ll need a couple of elements:

  • A computer or laptop with wireless capability
  • An Internet Service Provider (ISP)
  • A modem and network card
  • A wireless router

When you obtain an ISP, you will be provided with the necessary components to connect to the Internet with a wire. With the purchase of a wireless router, the need for cables becomes unnecessary. But how does it work? Both the router and the computer are digital devices, meaning they communicate in ones and zeroes. In order in order for information to be transmitted through the air from the computer to the router, though, that information must be translated into radio waves.

Your computer sends a message to the wireless router asking to visit a certain website. The router alerts that website, the website alerts the ISP, the ISP sends information back to the router, and the router allows you to access the site. All this is done in a matter of seconds, depending on your ISP and computer speed. In the end, the structure of a wireless connection is somewhat misleading. The wireless router does require a cable in order to contact the ISP. Wireless connections may continue to baffle the user, but technology like the radio was confusing in its hey-day as well.