9 career-boosting Wi-Fi certifications

If you’re looking to add more certifications to your resume, don’t forget about wireless! Whether you’re just starting your IT career, have been in IT before Wi-Fi was a thing, or even if you have a non-IT position, there are certifications to help prove your wireless knowledge and skills.For starters, there are vendor-neutral certifications from Certified Wireless Network Professionals (CWNP), one of most popular programs in the wireless world. These are great if you aren’t already loyal to a networking brand. And even if you already have a favorite brand, these go deeper into the 802.11 standards and radio frequency (RF) technology without all the proprietary details and brand specifics.To read this article in full, please click here

9 career boosting Wi-Fi certifications

If you’re looking to add more certifications to your resume, don’t forget about wireless! Whether you’re just starting your IT career, have been in IT before Wi-Fi was a thing, or even if you have a non-IT position, there are certifications to help prove your wireless knowledge and skills.For starters, there are vendor-neutral certifications from Certified Wireless Network Professionals (CWNP), one of most popular programs in the wireless world. These are great if you aren’t already loyal to a networking brand. And even if you already have a favorite brand, these go deeper into the 802.11 standards and radio frequency (RF) technology without all the proprietary details and brand specifics.To read this article in full, please click here

How to buy Wi-Fi 6 access points

Wi-Fi 6 has some impressive improvements over its predecessor Wi-Fi 5 including lower latency, faster speeds, higher throughput, and increased range that can make it a better fit to serve both dense clusters of clients and clients running high-bandwidth applications.As Wi-Fi in general replaces wired networks in some enterprises and with the increased use of tablets, laptops, and mobile phones within enterprises, wireless-network responsiveness and versatility are becoming more desirable. Wi-Fi 6 (802.11 ax) can help. It can also improve the efficiency of IoT Wi-Fi networks by letting sensors lie idle more of the time so their batteries last longer.To read this article in full, please click here

How to buy Wi-Fi 6 access points

Wi-Fi 6 has some impressive improvements over its predecessor Wi-Fi 5 including lower latency, faster speeds, higher throughput, and increased range that can make it a better fit to serve both dense clusters of clients and clients running high-bandwidth applications.As Wi-Fi in general replaces wired networks in some enterprises and with the increased use of tablets, laptops, and mobile phones within enterprises, wireless-network responsiveness and versatility are becoming more desirable. Wi-Fi 6 (802.11 ax) can help. It can also improve the efficiency of IoT Wi-Fi networks by letting sensors lie idle more of the time so their batteries last longer.To read this article in full, please click here

10 limitations of MU-MIMO in Wi-Fi

Multi-user MIMO allows multiple Wi-Fi devices to simultaneously receive multiple data streams. For example, a wireless access point (AP) can send data to four different Wi-Fi devices at the same time. MU-MIMO can greatly increase the network's throughput and is a real asset for high density networks.MIMO – which stands for multiple input multiple output – technology has evolved over the years since the debut of the single-user mode (SU-MIMO), which was introduced more than a decade ago with the 802.11n wireless standard. Learn more about MU-MIMO and Wi-Fi 6To read this article in full, please click here

How to scale a Wi-Fi network

Although it’s tempting to just deploy more access points (APs) when expanding your Wi-Fi network, there are many considerations to take in account first in order to get a high-performing result without overspending. Wi-Fi resources Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest? How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for Step one is to clearly understand what you are trying to achieve, then analyze the current setup so you know how well the network serves the coverage area, and only then go about designing and deploying the APs.To read this article in full, please click here

9 tips for speeding up your business Wi-Fi

The days are long past when a fast office Wi-Fi connection was a nice-to-have. These days it's essential for your business to provide clients and employees alike with a speedy, reliable wireless network.<aside class="sidebar medium"><h3 class="body">Wi-Fi resources</h3><ul><li><a href="https://www.networkworld.com/article/3541759/test-and-review-of-4-wi-fi-6-routers-whos-the-fastest.html"> Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest?</a></li><li><a href="https://www.networkworld.com/article/3356838/how-to-determine-if-wi-fi-6-is-right-for-you.html"> How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you</a></li><li><a href="https://www.networkworld.com/article/3510461/5-questions-to-answer-before-deploying-wi-fi-6.html">Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6</a></li><li><a href="https://www.networkworld.com/article/3563832/wi-fi-6e-when-its-coming-and-what-its-good-for.html"> Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for</a></li></ul></aside>To read this article in full, please click here

5 free network-vulnerability scanners

Though you may know and follow basic security measures on your own when installing and managing your network and websites, you'll never be able to keep up with and catch all the vulnerabilities by yourself.Vulnerability scanners can help you automate security auditing and can play a crucial part in your IT security. They can scan your network and websites for up to thousands of different security risks, producing a prioritized list of those you should patch, describe the vulnerabilities, and give steps on how to remediate them. Some can even automate the patching process.Though vulnerability scanners and security auditing tools can cost a fortune, there are free options as well. Some only look at specific vulnerabilities or limit how many hosts can be scanned but there are also those that offer broad IT security scanning.To read this article in full, please click here

5 free network-vulnerability scanners

Though you may know and follow basic security measures on your own when installing and managing your network and websites, you'll never be able to keep up with and catch all the vulnerabilities by yourself.Vulnerability scanners can help you automate security auditing and can play a crucial part in your IT security. They can scan your network and websites for up to thousands of different security risks, producing a prioritized list of those you should patch, describe the vulnerabilities, and give steps on how to remediate them. Some can even automate the patching process.Though vulnerability scanners and security auditing tools can cost a fortune, there are free options as well. Some only look at specific vulnerabilities or limit how many hosts can be scanned but there are also those that offer broad IT security scanning.To read this article in full, please click here

How to fix Wi-Fi interference

How to fix Wi-Fi interference

How to fix Wi-Fi interference

Since Wi-Fi transmits over the airwaves, it’s of course much more susceptible to interference than the wired network. There can be interference from your own network or neighbor's, non-Wi-Fi wireless devices, microwaves, and even radar systems. Since there are so many possibilities, tracking down or fixing the interference can be quite a task, but knowing where to start can help. Wi-Fi resources Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest? How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for The symptoms of interference issues can easily be mistaken for symptoms of other, more apparent problems such as poor Wi-Fi coverage. If so, maybe you blindly add more access points (AP) and, not knowing that you already had interference, that can actually cause more interference. So, try to find the root causes of any symptoms and be very intentional about the changes you make.To read this article in full, please click here

How-to improve Wi-Fi roaming

User satisfaction with Wi-Fi relies in part on whether the network supports smooth handoffs between access points as users and their devices roam about, and if the APs don’t do their job well, users will complain. Wi-Fi resources How-to measure enterprise Wi-Fi speeds How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for The initial tendency may be to install more APs in hopes of finding an easy fix, but doing so without careful analysis can make the situation even worse. Proper roaming requires more than just good signal strength throughout coverage areas; it takes a careful balance between the coverage of each AP on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands to make roaming work right.To read this article in full, please click here

How-to measure enterprise Wi-Fi speeds

There are many ways to evaluate the speed of your wireless LAN (WLAN), whether you’re trying to troubleshoot issues, ensure bandwidth-intensive clients will work well, fine-tune the performance, or just curious about your Wi-Fi speeds. Wi-Fi resources Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest? How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for The simple Internet-speed apps or websites can be useful, but sometimes you need to measure the actual Wi-Fi throughput. For this you usually need a testing platform with a server and clients.To read this article in full, please click here

Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest?

One of the most anticipated features of Wi-Fi 6 wireless routers is improved throughput over their Wi-Fi 5 predecessors, and we wanted to check whether they deliver. Wi-Fi resources How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for Four vendors – Extreme, Cisco, EnGenius and Meraki (owned by Cisco) – provided access points (AP) for our test. Since the routers support both Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), we tested them against two Wi-Fi 5 and two Wi-Fi 6 clients and recorded the average throughput and the peak throughput during one-minute tests.To read this article in full, please click here

How to deploy 802.1x for Wi-Fi using WPA3-Enterprise

Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) has brought significant security improvements to Wi-Fi networks, particularly WPA-3Enterprise, which includes tweaks to make authenticating to the network more secure. One of these is has to do with 802.1x authentication that is used to determine whether Wi-Fi clients will be granted access to the enterprise network. Wi-Fi resources Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest? How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for The enterprise mode of WPA has always allowed you to give each user a unique username/password to login to the Wi-Fi or to utilize unique digital certificates for each user to install on devices for even more security. Now with WPA3-Enterprise, the security is increased as clients are now required to make sure it’s communicating with the real authentication server before sending login credentials. That verification was optional with the earlier two versions of WPA.To read this article in full, please click here

How to deploy 802.1x for Wi-Fi using WPA3-Enterprise

Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) has brought significant security improvements to Wi-Fi networks, particularly WPA-3Enterprise, which includes tweaks to make authenticating to the network more secure. One of these is has to do with 802.1x authentication that is used to determine whether Wi-Fi clients will be granted access to the enterprise network. Wi-Fi resources Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest? How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for The enterprise mode of WPA has always allowed you to give each user a unique username/password to login to the Wi-Fi or to utilize unique digital certificates for each user to install on devices for even more security. Now with WPA3-Enterprise, the security is increased as clients are now required to make sure it’s communicating with the real authentication server before sending login credentials. That verification was optional with the earlier two versions of WPA.To read this article in full, please click here

Wi-Fi: How to deploy 802.1x authentication using WPA3-Enterprise

Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) has brought significant security improvements to Wi-Fi networks, particularly WPA-3Enterprise, which includes tweaks to make authenticating to the network more secure. One of these is has to do with 802.1x authentication that is used to determine whether Wi-Fi clients will be granted access to the enterprise network. Wi-Fi resources Test and review of 4 Wi-Fi 6 routers: Who’s the fastest? How to determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you Five questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E: When it’s coming and what it’s good for The enterprise mode of WPA has always allowed you to give each user a unique username/password to login to the Wi-Fi or to utilize unique digital certificates for each user to install on devices for even more security. Now with WPA3-Enterprise, the security is increased as clients are now required to make sure it’s communicating with the real authentication server before sending login credentials. That verification was optional with the earlier two versions of WPA.To read this article in full, please click here

8 free Wi-Fi stumbling and surveying tools for Windows and Mac

There is enterprise-level software for surveying Wi-Fi networks, but even in large wireless networks, simple freeware tools are handy for a quick peek at the airwaves during design, deployment or troubleshooting.Here is a look at eight free tools – some for Windows and some for Mac OS X – that provide basic details about nearby Wi-Fi signals: SSIDs, signal strength, channels, MAC addresses and security status. Learn about 5G and Wi-Fi 6 What is 5G? How is it better than 4G? How to determine if WiFi 6 is right for you What is MU-MIMO? Why do you need it in your wireless routers? When to use 5G, when to use WiFi 6 How enterprises can prep for 5G networks Some can even reveal “hidden” or non-broadcasted SSIDs, display the noise levels, or display statistics on successful and failed packets of your wireless connection. One of them includes Wi-Fi password-cracking tools that are useful for educational or penetration testing purposes.To read this article in full, please click here

5 questions to answer before deploying Wi-Fi 6

The Wi-FI 6 standard (802.11ax) is bringing many exciting improvements to Wi-Fi that make it an enticing option. These include speed, in the form of real-world multi-gigabit wireless connections, but also support for high-density networks like those in stadiums. However, it will take some careful thought and planning to know when to take the leap to Wi-Fi 6.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)