Wi-Fi

What is a Wi-Fi connection?

Many environments, such as corporate offices, coffee shops, airports, and libraries, offer access to a Wi-Fi network, which is a wireless local area network (WLAN). To access this WLAN, you connect your smartphone to the WLAN through a Wi-Fi access point (also called a hotspot). When you’re within range of an accessible Wi-Fi network, you can use your smartphone’s Wi-Fi feature to connect to that network and access the web.

Your smartphone supports Wi-Fi connectivity based on the 802.11 standard (802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n), with WPA, WPA2, WEP, and 802.1x authentication.

TIP Your Veer is itself a Wi-Fi access point. Use your smartphone to connect your laptop to the Internet. See Palm mobile hotspot.

Why use a Wi-Fi connection?

A Wi-Fi connection is especially helpful in the following situations:

•You’re outside a coverage area and you want to access the web.

•Your AT&T service plan incurs additional charges for data services and you want to minimize data service charges by using a Wi-Fi connection instead.

•You want to maintain a web connection while talking on the smartphone.

•You’re inside a coverage area, but outside AT&T’s 3G or 4G coverage area. (A Wi-Fi connection may provide faster throughput than a GPRS or EDGE data connection.)

Are there different kinds of Wi-Fi networks?

There are two types of Wi-Fi networks.

Open networks: These networks broadcast their name (SSID) and do not require you to enter a password or other settings. To learn how to connect to an open network for the first time, see Connect to a new open network.

Secure networks: These networks may broadcast their name, but at the very least, they require you to enter a password that you get from an administrator (who may be, for example, the librarian or the person behind the counter at the coffee shop). You may also have to get other network settings from the system administrator. To learn how to connect to a secure network for the first time, see Connect to a new secure network.

To connect to either type of network after the first time, see Connect to a previously used network.

Turn Wi-Fi on/off

Wi-Fi is turned on by default. Do one of the following to turn it off or on:

•Open Wi-Fi, and tap On or Off.

154 Chapter 10 : Web and wireless connections