Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part III: Installing a Wireless Network
� A button: The other mechanism for using WPS is called PBC (or push
button configuration). As the name implies, a button (either a physical
button or a virtual one on a computer screen or LCD display) is used —
there’s a button on both the AP/router and the client hardware. When the
router or AP detects a new Wi-Fi client wanting to join the network,
the buttons are activated — if you want to grant the new client permission
to join the network, you simply press the buttons on both the
router/AP and the client; configuration is automatic at this point.
WPS takes the drudgery out of setting up WPA and makes the process pretty
much foolproof. WPS doesn’t change the actual level of security you’re getting
on your network — all it does is turn on WPA (WPA2, to be exact). One thing
to keep in mind about WPS is that you need to have WPS capabilities on both
ends of the connection — the AP/router and the network client — to use the
system, but you can still use the old-fashioned manual configuration process
described in the preceding section to add non-WPS capable gear to your
network.
As WPS becomes more widespread, the Wi-Fi Alliance folks have a few more
tricks up their sleeves to make things even easier. These tricks come in the
form of two additional ways of using WPS:
� NFC: NFC (near field communications) is an extremely short-range (think
centimeters, not feet) radio system (similar, and related, to the RFID tags
now in use in warehouses and other logistics systems). With NFC, you
would simply put the WPS client and AP/router in very close proximity
and they’d automatically configure network access and security. Pretty
cool.
� USB: The final method for using WPS involves USB flash drives (the little
stick memory cards so many folks carry around these days. WPS can
allow a user to simply “carry” the network credentials to a client on a
flash drive — plug the flash drive into the AP/router and then into the
network client, and configuration is automatic.
These final two methods are optional in the WPS standard — the first two are
mandatory (found in all WPS certified devices).
As we mention at the outset, WPS is still pretty darned new, but you can see
the growing list of WPA compliant products at the Wi-Fi Alliance Web site at
www.wi-fi.org/wifi-protected-setup/ (just scroll down to the link titled
Products Certified for Wi-Fi Protected Setup).