So you have WiFi broadband? Probably not…

It’s a common misconception that we hear a lot. So what and why? To explain I need to go into some brief details on how you actually use ‘The Internet’.

‘The Internet’ (at least the bit you use) is best thought of as a long chain of separate links. They all have to work in harmony, or you won’t be able to use the system. Let’s look at a (very simplified) example: you want to look at the BBC website.

1. You type ‘bbc.co.uk’ into your web browser.
2. Your laptop processes this and works out you need an Internet connection.
3. According to it’s rules the laptop passes the request onto your LAN (Local Area Network) connection.
4. Your LAN connection contacts your router/hub and forwards the request.
5. Your router/hub acts according to it’s rules and sends your request to its WAN (Wide Area Network) connection.
6. The WAN connection sends this request down the cable(?) that connects your house to your provider’s exchange unit.
7. The exchange unit takes your message (along with many other customers’ requests) and relays them along the (increasingly high capacity) web of transmission systems that is the backbone of The Internet.
8. At the appropriate point your message exits the Internet backbone and passes up the local cable to the BBC’s server facility.
9. In this facility it passes through the appropriate firewalls & routers until it arrives at the server hosting the BBC website.
10. This web server looks at your request, chooses the appropriate content. And them sends this back – essentially reversing down the path I have just described above.

Now, in all of this, your ‘Broadband’ or ‘Internet connection’ is just Step 6 – the bit that connects the router in your house to the exchange of your ISP (Internet Service Provider. And, overwhelmingly, this is delivered via a cable: either copper or – increasingly – optical fibre. The only people who have “Wireless Broadband” are cu

stomers of specialist services, like AirBand or Elon Musk’s StarLink. Otherwise you don’t have ‘wireless broadband’!

There is other alternative. You can use the mobile phone data network (a.k.a. 4G or 5G) to provide the link between your

router and the Internet. This is also a form of ‘wireless broadband’. We use this quite often to provide backup Internet connections where the cabled connection is unreliable or undergoing maintenance.

So where does this misconception come from? The answer is straightforward. Most devices these days (smartphones, tablets, many laptops) make the connection to your router (Step 4) using WiFi. And so users use the shorthand ‘WiFi broadband’.

And another thing. Look at the list above (which is somewhat shortened for simplicity!). It’s a sequential chain, and it only moves as fast as the slowest link. So when a user says “my broadband is slow” it could be any one (or more) of these links – most of which neither they (nor us) have any influence over. King Canute had it right, and I bow to his wisdom!