What's up with the wireless?

How is it that when you get home, turn on your wireless laptop, and scan for networks you see every network in your neighborhood, yet you go to an airport and see just one of them?  What is it that you actually see anyways?  You see a network named "smith family" and one named "Jones."  They are called SSID; short for Set Service Identifier.  Basically it is the name of your network.

We know wireless has its limitations in range so how does it work that an entire airport has one SSID?  The term is called "clustering."  Wireless access points are spread out every so often and all chained together with clustering.  We are taking a group of wireless access points and grouping them together.  This allows for someone to stay connected no matter what side of the airport they are on or how far away they are going inside the facility.

Think about this the next time you are in a large environment and impress one of your friends by telling them you know about wireless clustering.  You might get called a tech nerd but if you are reading this blog you sort of are anyway, right?