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. One may be surprised at how easy wireless LANs are to use and deploy, and how cost effective they are compared to wired LANs, which have many indirect and hidden costs associated with installation and reconfigurations.
IEEE has adopted the 802.11 standard in 1997. This is the first WLAN standard that IEEE has adopted. IEEE 802.11 standard defines the media access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) layers for a WLAN. It addresses local area networking where the connected devices communicate over the air to other devices that are within close proximity to each other.
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.
In a typical WLAN infrastructure configuration, there are two basic components:
Access Points — An access point/base station connects to a LAN by means of Ethernet cable. Usually installed in the ceiling, access points receive, buffer, and transmit data between the WLAN and the wired network infrastructure...................
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