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Essay on Wireless LAN
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology today is relatively mature, though its adoption has not always met vendors' expectations. Nevertheless, wireless LANs are becoming commonplace in applications such as health care, trading floors, supermarkets, transportation and warehousing and are increasingly being used in office environments. Meanwhile the number of vendors keeps increasing, the technology keeps getting better and less expensive, and with the recently completed IEEE 802.11 standard, interoperability between vendors is becoming less of an issue (Matthew, 12). Moreover, convenient form factors such as PC Cards are becoming common.
Now days WLAN configurations vary from simple, independent, peer-to-peer connections between a set of PCs, to more complex, intra-building infrastructure networks. There are also point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless solutions (Matthew, 16). A point-to-point solution is used to bridge between two local area networks, and to provide an alternative to cable between two geographically distant locations (up to 30 miles). Point-to-multi-point solutions connect several, separate locations to one single location or building.
Higher Performance at Lower Cost
Early wireless LANs of the late 1980s offered throughputs of about 250 Kbps. The next generation reached 1 Mbps and today rates of 10 Mbps are available, albeit with lower coverage range. While 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps can be considered the standard today (with some higher-speed exceptions), 10 Mbps will become standard over the next couple of years, especially as new technologies such as pulse position spread spectrum are deployed (Konrad, 77).
The 3-year-old Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol has been discredited so thoroughly that its authentication and encryption capabilities are not considered sufficient for use in enterprise networks. In response to the WEP fiasco, many wireless LAN vendors have latched onto IEEE 802.1x standard to help authenticate and secure both wireless and wired LANs.
Like most advances, wireless LANs pose both opportunities and risks. The technology can represent a powerful complement to an organization’s networking capabilities, enabling increased employee productivity and reducing IT costs.
