iPhone® 4 Portable Genius

Chapter 2. How Do I Connect My iphone to a Network?

As a standalone device, your iPhone works just fine, thank you, because you can make calls, listen to music, take pictures, record and edit video, work with your contacts and calendars, take notes, play games, and much more. But your iPhone was made to connect: to surf the web, exchange email and text messages, watch YouTube videos, navigate with maps, and on and on. To do all of that, your iPhone must first connect to a network, and that's what this chapter is all about. I tell you about the various network types supported by the iPhone, and then I show you how to make, monitor, and control connections to those networks.

• Understanding Internet Access Networks 42

• Connecting to a Wi-Fi Network 43

• Tethering a Computer to Your iPhone's Internet Connection 48

• Keeping an Eye on Your Data Usage 50

• Controlling Network Data 51

• Creating a VPN Network Connection 55

Understanding Internet Access Networks

To get on the Web, your iPhone must first connect to a network that offers Internet access. To make this easy and seamless, your iPhone can work with not just a single network, not just two networks (like the original iPhone), but three network types:

• Wi-Fi. Short for wireless fidelity, and also called 802.11 by the geeks and AirPort by Apple types, you use your iPhone's built-in Wi-Fi antenna to connect to a wireless network that's within range. This ...