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I'm honoured that you took the time to type all this out but it looks like I've failed yet again at conveying what I meant to ask and I'll try to rephrase:
What you have been explaining is broadcasting when all devices are connected to the same network. I want to understand if it is possible to use WiFi just like a radio to broadcast data, without actually connecting. A device can transmit/broadcast, say, a video over the EM waves using some kind of modulation like they do in FM. The receiving devices, like our phones, already have hardware to receive these waves and process it to extract the information. Like I said, it already happens where the SSID of the WiFi transmitter/router is seen by all devices without actually connecting.
And before you say anything, yes I'm aware that it is a very small amount of data being 'transmitted' at a very low bitrate. But what is the limiting factor? Why can't much more data be transmitted this way?
I'm really sorry if there is a silly answer to this as I'm sure there must be. But, like I said, i could never find it in my searches.
Thanks and cheers!
Yes, at least some WiFi adapters can. Software used to attack WiFi connections, like
aircrack, does this by listening and logging (encrypted) packets without authenticating to the access point, and then attempting to determine an encryption key. You can just send unencrypted traffic the way you do today, and software could theoretically receive it.However, this probably won't provide any great benefit. That is, as far as I know, just being connected to a WiFi access point shouldn't generate much traffic, so you could have a very large number of computers authenticated to the WiFi access point -- just set it not to use a password -- without any real drawback relative to having the same machines snooping on unencrypted traffic.
WiFi adapters cannot listen to multiple frequencies concurrently (well, unless things have changed recently), so it won't let you easily receive data from more access points simultaneously, if you're thinking of having them all send data simultaneously.
The typical home routers don't support more than 20-25 simultaneous connections last i checked. I'm sure there must be professional devices that allow thousands of connections like they use in public wifi spots but I'm also sure they would be much pricier.
At this point, it is just a pursuit for understanding how these things work and if what I want can actually be made possible as alternative use case of WiFi, especially given how ubiquitous it is.
Thank you for indulging me nonetheless.