Lesson video

Hello, I'm Allen Heard, this is lesson three of six, all about wired and wireless networks.

Today, we'll need a pen and paper, something to write with and something to write on, turn off notifications on any mobile phones that are nearby, remove distractions that are close to you.

Pause the video while you get settled, and then we can make a start.

So in this lesson, we will compare wired and wireless networks and identify devices that use each of those networks, we'll defined bandwidth.

And then look at some bandwidth-heavy activities.

So wired or wireless? We're going to get you doing some work straight away in this lesson, right off the get go.

I'd like you to look at the image on the right hand side.

There's some devices in that image in a typical living room and using the worksheet, you can identify whether the devices are connected wired or wirelessly.

If they can be connected via both of the means, just put either both or wired or wireless.

You can pause the video and complete the task.

Okay, how did you get along? Well in this living room here, there is a router next to the television, and that would typically be connected by wires to your telephone socket so that it can get an outside connection.

We have a desktop PC, and again, generally they're connected with wires.

Printer, somewhere here, they can be wired or wireless.

The TV, again, if it's a smart TV that can have an internet connection and that can be connected via a cable or wirelessly A tablet, well obviously that would have to be wireless because you wouldn't be very much use if you're carrying a tablet around that was a wired for a connection to the internet.

Wouldn't be very portable.

Similarly with a smartphone on the side, that would also be connected wirelessly.

So if you've got all those well done.

Wireless technologies that you may be familiar with are Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G which is third generation wireless mobile and 4G, which is fourth generation wireless mobile, which is quicker than, than 3G, which we'll find out shortly.

Bluetooth used for connecting things like headphones, wireless headphones to your device.

If you wants to listen to video or music.

So bandwidth, that's the amount of data that can be moved from one point to another in a given time.

So the higher your bandwidth, the more data you can have, or the more data you get per second, It's similar to that of water flowing through a pipe.

So it depends on the size and the thickness of the pipe, but more bandwidth does not increase the speed, okay? So if we take a look at this diagram here, we have three pipes, the analogy, we'll stick with a pipe analogy, the water doesn't travel any faster as the pipe gets bigger, but you get more water because more can flow through at any given time.

So looking at those three cables, A, B and C, which one do you think has got the greatest bandwidth? You can pause the video and complete the task.

Okay, so looking at that diagram of the pipes, A, B and C.

A has the largest space in the middle for data or water in this, in our analogy to flow through.

So that would give the highest bandwidth.

Measuring bandwidth.

It's measured in bits per second, as a bit is the smallest unit of data.

Data transfer rates are so large now or so good that bandwidth is usually measured in megabits per second.

And one megabit is a million bits.

So in this task, Task two, measuring bandwidth, using the worksheet, you're going to put the following technologies in order starting with lowest to highest.

So we have 4G, 3G and broadband.

What order do you think, largest to smallest, those technologies have, as far as bandwidth is concerned? You can pause the video and complete the task.

Right, so the correct order is as follows.

Broadband is the fastest followed by 4G and then 3G.

Typical download speeds.

They can vary depending on whereabouts you are and how far away you are from your telephone network.

As far as broadband is concerned, 3G typically around three megabits per second, 4G about 20 megabits per second, and broadband again on average about 46 megabits per second.

So when you're downloading your computer's receiving data, so you could be browsing a webpage or watching online videos.

And when you're uploading your computer is sending data to the internet.

So that could be putting a video on a streaming site or posting a photograph on Instagram, for instance.

So when using devices, you'll probably find the upload speeds are usually much slower than download speeds.

Why do you think that might be the case? Why might downloads be faster than uploads? what do you think? So why do you think downloading might be faster than uploading? Pause the video and complete the task.

Well internet service providers, they configure connections based on the most popular activities.

And as people generally spend most of the time downloading than they do uploading, downloading gets allocated more of that bandwidth than uploading does.

So for instance, you could be listening to music and you're bringing data down from the internet.

So you're downloading information.

You're not always going to be uploading or sending, sending data to the internet.

You may have heard about 5G.

5G is the next generation of mobile internet connectivity.

This has got the potential to be absolutely phenomenally fast, 10 times, 20 times faster than 4G and 10 gigabits per second.

It's already been rolled out in six cities by EE in 2019.

Those kinds of speeds mean you could download a HD film in than a second, which is absolutely incredible.

You've probably all seen this logo, the dreaded buffering logo, some online activities use more data than others.

So those using the most data generally require higher bandwidth in order to avoid delays or freezing or screens or buffering, things like that.

You may have seen this when you're streaming online video.

It might pause at the beginning, do this for a little bit.

And then once it's downloaded enough data to keep it going while it downloads data as you're watching something or listening to something, then it will continue.

Can be quite frustrating, generally fixing your broadband bandwidth, increasing your bandwidth on your connection will kind of resolve that issue.

So when you see this kind of image, it means that data is arriving at your device at a slower rate than it's been processed.

So again, using that movie example, I said previously.

You could be downloading, you could be watching a movie.

Some of it's downloaded, you watched it, but before it's had a chance to download the next part of that movie, you've already watched that portion.

So therefore it can't continue playing because it hasn't received that data.

So then you get this horrible buffering logo.

So can you identify which activities use more bandwidth than others? So we've given some examples throughout the course of the last couple of slides in this lesson.

So there is a task to complete.

The task is on the worksheet.

Can you identify which activities use more bandwidth? You can pause the video and complete the task.

Okay, so there's the table that you're presented with.

For sure, gaming and uploading video content requires a higher bandwidth.

Gaming, particularly because it's live is right there and then, so, you know, you can't really pause it and carry on while other people are playing the game with you.

So that requires high bandwidth.

And video obviously, 'cause the files can be quite large.

Reading the news and checking the weather.

That's fairly light usage.

Emailing is fairly low, depending.

I mean, you could be putting larger attachments with your emails instead of putting them on a cloud-based platform and sharing the link, which will be a little bit more efficient.

And depending on the amount of embedded content you're looking at social media, could be light to medium.

Just depends on how many videos of cats spinning around on turntables or falling off couches that you're watching.

Okay, so that's the, the end of this lesson.

Don't forget, there is a quiz to complete.

The quiz will test your knowledge of wired and wireless networks.

And also we'd love you to share your work with Oak National.

So if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Really enjoyed that today.

It'd be great to see what work you've come up with and I'll see you next time.