Wireless Access Point Vs. Ad Hoc Network
Some people confuse wireless Access Points with Wireless Ad Hoc networks. An Ad Hoc network uses a connection between two or more devices without using a wireless access point: the devices communicate directly when in range. An Ad Hoc network is used in situations such as a quick data exchange or a multiplayer LAN game because setup is easy and does not require an access point. Due to its peer-to-peer layout, Ad Hoc connections are similar to Bluetooth ones and are generally not recommended for a permanent installation.
Internet access via Ad Hoc networks, using features like Windows' Internet Connection Sharing, may work well with a small number of devices that are close to each other, but Ad Hoc networks don't scale well. Internet traffic will converge to the nodes with direct internet connection, potentially congesting these nodes. For internet-enabled nodes, Access Points have a clear advantage, with the possibility of having multiple access points connected by a wired LAN.
Read more about this topic: Wireless Access Point
Famous quotes containing the words access, point and/or network:
“Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the state of victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, “they” don’t want me, “they” accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, “they” don’t deserve me.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“I laugh when I think that all of Rome made it a point not to pronounce Drusilla’s name. Because Rome was mistaken for all those years. Love is not enough for me, and I understood that then.... To love someone is to accept to grow old with her. An old Drusilla is far worse than a dead one.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)