What is the "Name" of the wireless Connection?

We all have heard that question at least once from people coming to visit us in our house and willing to browse the internet on their cell phones or tablet, at the airport while waiting for the next flight : What is the name of your wireless: "What is the name of your wireless?"

I will try to explain that concept of wireless name using a telephone Communication system. With our cell phone, we move a lot (that is why it is called a mobile phone)  and buy a plan from AT&T or Verizon or Sprint or any other telephone company out there; the point is that you have a plan with a telephone company. Let's say that company is AT&T, therefore whenever you want to make a call, your call is routed through the AT&T network towards the destination phone and this is regardless of your location. You might ask yourself how does that work?

figure-1:Cell Phone tower

Figure-2:Cell phone tower
Technical Representation

The image you are seeing on the left is that of a Cell phone tower. It almost impossible not to notice them in our cities today. Basically the closer your are to those towers, a better signal you have and therefore a better call  quality you are going to experience.

On the right, you have a technical representation  of the cell phone tower (bravo your are officially a network Engineer!) I imagine you saying : what next? 

From the same cell tower  you can have a signal from AT&T, Verizon , Sprint, T-Mobile or more,  The point is that your has been coded to automatically detect AT&T signal (The name of your cell phone signal) and is able to use it to allow you to make a call.

Figure-3:Signal emission from Cell phone Tower

Figure-3 above depicts a cell phone tower broadcasting signal from different cell phone companies. Your Cell phone will pick the signal from AT&T because it has the "password" corresponding to that signal ( In the Similar, a guest in your house is going to ask you the "name" of your wireless connection because the next request will be the password for that connection.)

Now going back to our Wireless concept, whenever you have a guest at home and he/she is asking for the "name" of your wireless connection in order to connect to the  Internet, he/she is in fact asking for the name you gave to the Wireless Signal you manage and that name is in fact the SSID (Service Set Identifier). Generally a password is associated to that SSID to keep unwanted connection out of your network.

figure-4:Wifi connection

Figure-4 illustrates a home wireless connection example. the guest laptop device will connect to whatever  SSID (Ashley-house, Henry or Giant) he/she has a password to access (the SSID password is generally with the one who manages the wireless).

In summary, an SSID is a name given to a signal that you use to access a network.