What Is Wi-Fi?
Sometimes the Wi-Fi symbol is right there at the top of your phone, with every bar showing, but a website still won’t open. The phone hasn’t necessarily lost Wi-Fi. It can still be connected to Wi-Fi even when there is no internet access.
That’s because Wi-Fi and the internet are two different things. Wi-Fi is a way for nearby devices to connect to a network without a cable. Phones, laptops, TVs, and other devices send information back and forth using radio waves.
At home, that wireless connection is usually between a device and a router. The router often has its own connection to the internet. Most of the time both are working at once, so you don’t have much reason to think of them separately.
Instead of a cable, there’s Wi-Fi
A laptop can connect to a router with a physical cable. Information travels through that cable between the laptop and the network.
Connect the same laptop over Wi-Fi and radio waves carry that information through the air instead. The laptop can now communicate with the router without being physically attached to it.
When the laptop opens a website, Wi-Fi gets the request as far as the router. Reaching the website requires the router’s internet connection.
Not everything sent over Wi-Fi needs to go online, either. A computer can send something to a wireless printer on the same local network. Both devices can communicate through the network without the internet being part of that exchange.
The farther away, the weaker the Wi-Fi
Because Wi-Fi uses radio waves, the connection can change as a device moves around. A phone may have a strong signal near the router and a weaker one several rooms away. Walls, floors, and other objects between the phone and router can affect the signal too.
That familiar drop in Wi-Fi as you move through a building does not necessarily mean anything has changed with the internet coming into it. The Wi-Fi indicator generally reflects the nearby wireless signal, so fewer bars can simply mean the phone has a weaker radio connection to the router.