With the advent of high-speed Internet has come a variety of ways to connect to it without using wires. Whether you're surfing at home or checking out an online map on your cell phone, wires are becoming increasingly unnecessary.

Wireless Context

"Wireless" Internet can mean different things, depending on the device you're using and what region you're located in--urban and rural environments can have different methods of establishing connections to the Internet.

Urban Cell Phone Networks

This type of area is highly populated with cell phone towers. Cell phones need to have an account with a provider to connect to these towers, and certain providers may have exclusive rights to a given tower.

Computers and Cell Networks

You can use a cell phone service to connect a desktop or laptop to the Internet. Providers such as Sprint, Verizon and AT&T offer PC Cards that you attach to your computer to connect.

Standard Wireless Internet

This service is more oriented towards people who need to be connected even when they don't have access to a Wi-Fi access point. It is generally less expensive to get a broadband Internet subscription from a local provider and set up Wi-Fi in your home or business.

Wi-Fi Basics

Wi-Fi does not use towers. Instead, it connects to a national network of fiber optic cables. Any device with a Wi-Fi adapter can connect to a sufficiently close Wi-Fi access point (a few hundred feet at most) if you have the password or if the connection is not password protected.

Other Wireless

This term can also refer to a satellite connection. Satellites can "see" an entire country at once, meaning you could connect to it in a very remote area, but it's also expensive and can suffer from delayed signals, making it impractical, for example, for online gaming.

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Wi-Fi Overview

How Cell Networks Operate