Since people are doing more and more work digitally, connection to the Internet has become very important. Additionally, people have started replacing their desktops with laptops and have started connection to the Internet using wireless networks.
Laptops can be connected to the Internet mainly in three ways:
Wireless Internet Connection using WiFi
Wireless LAN or WiFi has become the most common means of establishing a wireless connection to the Internet. Most of the mini laptop computers available in the market come with in-built WiFi Adapter or modem. Additionally, the WiFi modems are also available in form of USB WiFi dongle which can establish a wireless connection by attaching to USB port of the laptop.
Wireless Internet Connection using 3G Broadband
Nowadays, Internet connection through 3G broadband is widely available. The data is transferred over 3G telecom network and the connection works even on train and car provided the mobile phone signal is available. This technology is however still evolving and separate modems are required by the laptops. Most of the laptops currently establish the Internet connection over the 3G broadband through USB modems available from telecom network operators.
Wired connection using LAN or DSL
Traditionally, the high speed Internet connections are achieved by connecting laptop to either Local Area Network (LAN) or Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) line through wires. The wired connections have much higher data speed than wireless connections, meaning it would take much less delay for website pages to load on your laptop. Also video streaming like videos on you tube would not require lot of buffering time. Although the Internet speed in this case is much higher than the 3G broadband connections, the connectivity is limited to particular place.
Connection to Internet has come a long way. Previously the modem drivers were required to be separately installed, but with the modern operating systems the drivers are pre-installed and the laptop can be immediately connected to the Internet without much installation. For the wireless connections, the laptop just need to search for the available wireless networks and the user is required to input the user name and password to access the particular connection. Similarly, the laptops can be connected to the Internet using the wired LAN or DSL wires.
