Wireless networking is rapidly becoming the norm for home networking, restaurants, coffee shops, and even hotels. Because of its wide and rapid implementation, it is also being utilized in greater numbers in businesses.
One of the problems with using wireless technology on a local area network (LAN) has been some of the rules and regulations that were set up by the US Government. When wireless first came about, the signals had to be broadcast using the 900 MHz frequency range. The problem posed here was the limitations on speed. In the 900 MHz spectrum, data could only be transmitted at 2 to 3 Mbps. At the same time, the standard copper transmission was 10 Mbps. This made the transfer of data very slow and also hindered the adoption rate.
Another problem was security. With the technology that was in place it was easy for a transmission to get scrambled, interrupted, and/or intercepted. With all this in mind it is clear why people and business were reluctant to install wireless computer networks.
A couple of years ago the US Government approved the use of the 2.4 GHz frequency band and more recently the 5 GHz frequency. This allowed the speed of wireless to more than quadruple, to a speed of 11 Mbps (802.11b). With a transfer rate of 11 Mbps a wireless LAN set up became very attractive. The current speed standard is now 54Mbps (802.11g), but with the approval of some new technology, will soon be at 300Mbps (802.11n).
Because of the very nature of the 2.4 and 5.0 GHz frequency range and the improvements in both network operating systems (NOS) and network protocols it was now possible to make the data transmission more secure (WPA/WPA2, 802.11i). While there is always a possibility that your data can be "stolen" when using a wireless system, it is increasingly more difficult and it would take a person who desperately wanted to access your data and great amounts of time and resources to do so. That same person could also do the same if you just had a copper (cable) LAN.
There are basically two types of wireless LAN's. The first is a peer-to-peer network (Ad Hoc) in which each of the computers has a wireless network interface card (NIC). These computers talk directly to each other via the airwaves, without a router to other device as a go-between.
The second, wireless computers communicate via a router (or server), with each other and other networked PCs (Infrastructure). Existing wired LANs can add-on wireless without restricting their entire configuration. To do that we add one more component called an Access Point. The AP is basically a transceiver that has a cable connection to the LAN and it then transmits and receives signals from each of the wireless computers. One of the attractive features of using an access point is that you can use multiple access points, distributed throughout your building. This allows you to roam with a laptop computer or WI-FI enabled smart phone and remain attached to the network at all times in a seamless fashion.
Wireless NIC's, of course, cost more than conventional NIC's but when installing a wireless LAN you must also take into account the cost for cabling to all the various locations. With those cost factors eliminated or at least greatly reduced, increasing security and speeds, setting up a wireless LAN becomes more and more attractive each day.
