Computer networking plays a vital role in facilitating the communication required in almost every aspect of daily life. Activities like talking with friends and family, collaborating with coworkers, paying bills, and even completing transactions at a store often depend on some form of computer networking. Computer networking is defined as the connection of people through the use of devices and cables, and sometimes wireless signals. This week, you will learn about the basic types and shapes of networks and how they are used. You will explore wireless networking fundamentals including SSID configuration, access point deployment, and security protocols ranging from WPA evolution to WPA3 implementation. The module examines 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) standard features, frequency band characteristics, and channel planning strategies. And finally, you will learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each network type.

Understanding the foundations of how all networks behave is achieved by investigating the rules. That includes finding out how each rule works and observing how each rule is applied to the network and how the network is affected by that rule. This week, you will learn about networking devices and the basic instructions they follow to connect us in the ways we expect. You will understand how data is packaged electronically, which rules are used to send the data, how those rules are made, and how computers determine where to send those data packages. You will also gain insights on the near field communication (NFC) principles.

One of the key components of communicating is understanding how to communicate. That includes knowing what enables communication, and what blocks it. This is just as true for computer networking as it is for person-to-person interactions. If you don’t understand the ways to get data from one point to another, the data will never arrive where you want it to. This week you will learn the basic steps for setting up small office or home office networks—including wired, wireless, and mobile configurations. You’ll explore Network Settings in Windows and then learn what causes network connectivity problems and how to resolve those problems. Finally, you will learn how command line utilities can be used to find network information and diagnose network issues.

As we’ve discussed, connection plays a vital role in communication. Another key component in communication is memory; information is not useful if it can’t be recalled. Network storage is where the memory is located in computer networking. This week you will learn about different types of network storage and basic storage troubleshooting. You’ll learn about short-term and long-term memory, and the different ways that memory can be arranged to increase capacity and efficiency. Additionally, students will investigate high-performance NVMe storage technologies, understanding PCIe integration and performance optimization factors. You’ll also learn about local, offsite, and cloud memory and how all these different kinds of memory enable faster and more efficient interaction between people, devices, and software.

In this module, you’ll assess your course knowledge through a final project and a final quiz based on the previous modules.