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When Frank Swain began losing his hearing at 20, he decided he would use his new reliance on technology to hear something others couldn't: the sound of Wi-Fi.

The London-based writer teamed up with sound designer Daniel Jones to build a tool that translates Wi-Fi networks into sounds that could be picked up through his hearing aids.

Now, Mr Swain has created a map and audio file that reveal what the internet sounds like, during his walk around BBC Broadcasting House in central London.

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The sound of each network is heard originating from the router's geographical location, producing clicks whose frequency rises with the signal strength — akin to a layered series of Geiger counters. Pictured is how the internet sounds at the BBC in London, close to Oxford Circus

In a feature for the New Scientist, Mr Swain describes the sounds he hears from public internet data using his new hacked hearing aid.

'As I approach Turnpike Lane tube station and descend to the underground platform, I catch the now familiar gurgle of the public Wi-Fi hub, as well as the staff network beside it,' he writes.

'On board the train, these sounds fade into silence as we burrow into the tunnels leading to central London.'

'You expect it to be really strange, but it very quickly becomes ordinary,' Frank Swain (pictured) said

The project, dubbed Phantom Terrains, works by translating the language of a wireless network into sounds.

Each Wi-Fi element – such as router names, data rates and encryption modes - are assigned their own tones, which are sent to a phone and picked up using his hearing aids.

The foreground and background layer of sound are built up through the strength of the signal, direction, name and security level on these networks.

For instance, distant signals sound like click and pops, while stronger networks play a looped song.

'You expect it to be really strange, but it very quickly becomes ordinary,' Mr Swain told MailOnline.

'It was a big blow to find I was losing my hearing, so it was nice to have my expectations turned around, to think instead of it being a disability it could be an enhancement.'

WHAT WOULD WI-FI LOOK LIKE IF WE COULD SEE IT?

An American artist has created stunning colourful representations showing what Wi-Fi waves, peaks and pulses would look like if we could see them.

Nickolay Lamm worked with former Nasa astrobiologist M. Browning Vogel to learn how the networks move and based the designs on coverage data taken from around the U.S Congress and The National Mall in Washington.

The images show the shape of the Wi-Fi signal's and different colours were used to distinguish the different sub channels.

As well as looking great, the illustrations were also designed to teach people about how Wi-Fi signals work.

Mr Lamm, from website MyDeals.com, said: 'Although we use it often, we rarely think about how it works.

'A lot of us take technology for granted and use it without appreciating the science that makes it work.'

The project was a follow-up to Lamm's Wi-fi visualisations released last year which depicted the shape of the Wi-Fi signals. The Wi-Fi pulses are shown here as spheres. Lamm used red, orange, yellow and other colours to represent these invisible channels that make up the overall Wi-Fi signal

Mr Swain said that despite wireless communication becoming a ubiquitous presence in modern life, the underlying infrastructure has remained largely invisible.

'If you have ever wandered in circles to find a signal for your cell phone, you will know what I mean,' he said.

Phantom Terrains, he said, opens the door to this world to a small degree by tuning into these fields.

'If I have to spend my life listening to an interpretative version of the world, what elements could I add?,' Mr Swain asked.

'The data that surrounds me seems a good place to start.'

Wi-Fi routers on buildings and lamp posts create a circular omnidirectional data fields around them, pictured. Wi-Fi broadcasts at a frequency between radio and microwaves, meaning that the waves or pulses are about six inches apart, as shown by these coloured bands in front of Congress