If you could 'See The Internet' Approaching your Laptop, would in come in Waves?, Circles?, Beams?

Categorize this as yet another question I have about personal computers, but am too embarrassed to ask anybody about till now. That is what I wonder. I hear the web described as a 'cloud', so I suppose it one way it exists is in the form of a massive activity ball of entertwined signals. Sometimes, I'm lucky, and my connection occurs almost immediately. Does it variate in intensity and speed as would radio waves, with consistant peaks and valleys?. I've begun to wonder if the net is being sent out in the form of linear beams, almost laser like in their straightness and concentration. Other times, my connection is sporadic, or more prone to fluctuation. It almost oozes into my cell phone. I know this sounds hopelessly unlearned, but it is a question I have. Knowing the various ways the net is sent out or received may help me to know the best way to position my phone or tablet or laptop in order to recieve these data more quickly.

Long ago, my office embarked on a huge task: digitize all the maps in the nation.
After a while my boss reported that we were half finished. I knew that was far-fetched because we hadn’t even completed standards development.
He later explained that since we would eventually store binary data, all we had left was the 1’s.

LOL

This may change in the next few innovations. Wireless is still in it’s infancy.

I don't think that is true - Wireless will always be slower, cannot catch up, simply because the wire is native, while wireless necessarily is converted from wire to radio, and then back again. That necessarily takes more time than 'straight through', see?

Your last point, wired is faster and more reliable than wireless. I was surprised to discover that for myself. This may change in the next few innovations. Wireless is still in it’s infancy.

Not only does wireless have to be converted from/to wired, but it's also much more sensitive to outside interference.

Technically, they travel at the same speed, close to the speed of light. What you mean by 'speed' is actually bandwidth: larger amounts of data in smaller amounts of time. Since a wired connection is a physical, linear connection, there is much less interference, and a more reliable connection. And depending on the gear attached to it, can send tons of data per second. A wireless connection will be sending data out in all directions, meaning you have a lot less range, can get interference from other wireless in the area (Or an EM field, like power or metals), and is a lot less secure (Anyone can read your data, and with a few simple tools can decrypt it and actually read it.) So in order to increase 'speed', you need to find ways to increase the amount of data you can transmit at the same time. Advances like fiber, which uses light pulses instead of radio/electricity, mean you get light-fast data, and is capable of transmitting lots of data for a given amount of EM wave.

A lot of this is similar to the radio you listen to, with two different types of data transfer: FM and AM (frequency and amplitude modulation). Depending on which you use, you get clearer transmissions, as you can put more, and more specific (hence clearer), information into a FM signal than AM.

Here's a test you can try to see it in action: plug in a wireless mouse, and a decent wired one. You'll see latency issues simply because a wired mouse is near-instantaneous data transfer to your computer, whereas a wireless mouse (while more convenient), still has to convert, transmit, and reconvert the same data signal.

it sounds like a wifi issue. Lots of things can interfere with it. Where you place your devices that broadcast your wifi radio signal. Wifi is broadcast like AM radio where anything that blocks your line of site to the wifi radio causes issue.

Things that can help. Make sure your wifi router or access point is placed as high up as possible away from metal objects. Ceiling mounts, tops of book shelfs, even stacking stuff and placing it on top can help. If you are getting a full wifi signal or at least a good one and you are still slowing down, that indicates channel overlap. Wifi channels 1-4 and 5-11 overlap each other. You need a tech or to do some research to troubleshoot this. If the guy running the router is willing and able, have him change the channel to either 1 or 11 as a test.

These kinds of issues are really tough to troubleshoot remotely. You may be able to see your connection speed on your wifi enabled device by looking at the wifi connection properties. I can on android but not on windows mobile or ios without extra apps. I don’t know any since I use Inssider on a windows pro tablet. Adding an wifi extender can help but you need to check for channel overlap and bad radio placement first

I hope some of this helps. It gets complicated fast . Think of wifi like radio waves. Your actual Internet at the modem is like cars moving down a freeway. Every packet of info is a car driving along and the quality of the road can affct speed.

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