Barely Scratching the Surface

TCP/IP networking (that is, Internet-style networking) is a complicated and subtle business. About the best I can do in this chapter is allow you to get your bearings. Most of the time you can treat network machinery as a black box and not pay a great deal of attention to how it works. Now and then, however, you may need to know something about it to troubleshoot problems, especially those involving mixing networking products from different manufacturers. (This is the primary reason that I recommend buying all your Wi-Fi devices from the same manufacturer if you're not at least moderately up on networking theory and practice.)

Knowledge is good, and the more you know about networking the easier it will be to make your network do precisely what you want it to do.

In the meantime, it's time to get down to some serious Wi-Fi network design, which is the subject of the next chapter.