How does Wi-Fi actually transmit data wirelessly?

Wi-Fi transmits data by converting digital information into radio waves, typically operating at 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies. A router's wireless radio encodes data onto these waves using a technique called modulation, where variations in the wave's amplitude, frequency, or phase represent binary ones and zeros. The waves radiate outward from the antenna and are picked up by your device's wireless adapter, which decodes the signal back into digital data. Modern Wi-Fi uses OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), which splits data across multiple smaller sub-frequencies simultaneously, making transmission faster and more resistant to interference. Devices and routers take turns transmitting on shared channels, coordinated by protocols that prevent collisions, allowing multiple devices to share the same airspace efficiently.