GC: n

CT: What is a wireless network? How is it different from a wired network? And what are the business benefits of a wireless network? The following overview answers basic questions such as What is a wireless network?, so you can decide if one is right for your business.
What is a wireless network, exactly?
A wireless local-area network (LAN) uses radio waves to connect devices such as laptops to the Internet and to your business network and its applications. When you connect a laptop to a WiFi hotspot at a cafe, hotel, airport lounge, or other public place, you’re connecting to that business’s wireless network.
What Is a Wireless Network vs. a Wired Network?
A wired network connects devices to the Internet or other network using cables. The most common wired networks use cables connected to Ethernet ports on the network router on one end and to a computer or other device on the cable’s opposite end.
What Is a Wireless Network? Catching Up with Wired Networks.
In the past, some believed wired networks were faster and more secure than wireless networks. But continual enhancements to wireless networking standards and technologies have eroded those speed and security differences.

S: http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/solutions/small_business/resource_center/articles/work_from_anywhere/what_is_a_wireless_network/index.html (last access: 3 March 2015)

N: 1. wireless (adj): 1894, in reference to as a type of telegraph, from wire (n.) + -less. As a noun, “radio broadcasting,” attested from 1903, subsequently superseded by radio.
network (n): “net-like arrangement of threads, wires, etc.,” 1550s, from net (n.) + work (n.). Extended sense of “any complex, interlocking system” is from 1839 (originally in reference to transport by rivers, canals, and railways). Meaning “broadcasting system of multiple transmitters” is from 1914; sense of “interconnected group of people” is from 1947.
2. Type of wireless network: WLAN.
3. Another type of wireless network: Wi-Fi.

S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=wireless&searchmode=none; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=network&searchmode=none (last access: 3 March 2015). 2. http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Computer_Science/wireless_networks_explained.asp (last access: 3 March 2015). 3. http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3674591 (last access: 17 January 2015); TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 17 January 2015).

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CR: Bluetooth wireless technology, computer network, computer science, roaming, Wi-Fi.