AP is also divided into hardware and software-Introduction to wireless soft AP

Wireless AP is believed to be familiar to everyone. So have you heard of wireless soft AP? Next, this article will introduce the concept of wireless soft AP and the features and functions of wireless soft AP. I hope this article will help you understand this wireless product.

Introduction to wireless soft AP

A wireless product named "Soft AP" is quite common in the market. Soft AP is Soft-AP, and its hardware is a standard wireless network card, however, it provides the same signal transfer and routing functions as AP through the driver. Compared with traditional AP, it has a low cost and can work together with functions. What is the value of such a product for consumers? Next, let's take a look.

Features of wireless soft AP

As you know, although the working principle of a wireless network is not much different from that of a wired network, the wireless network is quite special. For example, in the two main network modes of the wireless network, the single-Access Point solution of the Wireless AP is equivalent to the solution of the wired hub/switch, while the scheme of the wireless Nic peer-to-peer solution is quite different from that of the wired Nic.

Nature of wireless network interfaces

As you know, wired network cards and wired network cards can only achieve dual-nic dual-host interconnection and three-host, four-nic, and three-host interconnection similar to ultra-small LAN networks. Wireless NICs and wireless NICs are different in networking. As long as a wireless Nic is installed on each computer, multiple computers can access each other, the key is that it can theoretically connect up to 256 computers. In general, it is no problem to connect wireless NICs between 5-15 computers ).

If you need to connect to a wired network, you can install a wired network card for one of the computers. In the wireless network, other computers use this computer as the gateway to access devices such as the Internet, wired network, and shared printers.

Why do we need to talk about this problem when talking about wireless soft AP? In a broad sense, as long as it is a wireless network card, as long as the driver supports the implementation of the so-called "soft AP" function, this is a basic feature of the wireless network card, it is the main difference between a wireless network adapter and a wired network adapter.

For example, what should we do if we want to change any wireless network card in a wireless peer network consisting of multiple wireless network cards to a wireless soft AP?

In fact, the method is very simple. Taking Windows 98SE as an example, we first set up a wireless peer-to-peer network, select a computer as the host to access the existing ADSL or CM broadband, set the IP address of the computer's wireless Nic to 192.168.0.1, set DNS, then install the ICS sharing software and specify the NIC connected to the LAN network as the wireless Nic.

Then, set the IP address range from 192.168.0.2 to 254 on each computer, set DNS, and set the gateway to 192.168.0.1. A "soft" AP with the AP function is initially created. Setting the same category in Windows/XP is simpler. You only need to enable the ICS function of the wireless Nic.