WLAN

WLANs

WLANs

Introduction

The demand for flexibility and mobility in our daily lives has increased in the recent times. It is these demands that have resulted in the development of Wireless Local Areas Networks (WLANS) from wired LANS. The recent advancements in wireless technology have made it possible for the users to transmit their data at a high bit rate over WLAN that was considered a slow and quite unreliable mode of transmission not very long ago. User of WLANS can now enjoy the technology in order to meet their varying bandwidth requirements such as web applications, streaming video, video conferencing etc (Saif, et al, 2011, pp. 336-350).

Present statistics demonstrate that wireless communication is a field that has been developing at a fast pace. The field holds many future possibilities and there are many expectations related to the technology. One of these expectations is that the WLAN devices can build to support higher data rates with enhanced security. As the deployment of WLAN is increasing exceptionally around the world, it is equally important for us to develop an understanding of different technologies of WLAN, different components of the technology, and the WLAN security concepts in order to intelligently select the most appropriate solutions for future communication needs (Pardhi & Gaikwad, 2011, pp. 51-56).

This paper aims at exploring the evolution of Wireless LAN, while discussing the underlying technology and the improvements and modifications in the earlier standards in order to enable the technology to meet the future data demands. The paper will also analyse the architecture and security mechanisms used to secure the data transmitted over the WLAN.

Discussion

Evolution of WLAN

Advances in communications in recent years enabled the emergence of several technologies that seek to meet the communication needs of users with the best possible quality. In recent years, wireless communications has gained considerable space in technologies for data transmission. This tendency was strengthened by large scale investment made by institutions and companies to implement wireless transmission in computer networks. Also investing in this new technology, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) established a research group to create open standards that could make wireless technology a reality. This project, known as IEEE 802.11, was started in 1990 but was dormant for about seven years due to factors not allowing wireless technology to come out of the paper and become a reality. A major factor was the low rate of data transfer that the technology initially offered (Lei, et al, 2012, pp. 76-79).

Currently the focus of computer wireless networks is in the context of local computer networks (Wireless Local Area Network - WLAN), both as proprietary solutions and the IEEE standard. Some proprietary standards were first put into practice, by companies like IBM, CISCO, 3COM and Telecom. Today these and other companies base their products on the IEEE standard, because of the many advantages already known that the open standard offers: interoperability, low cost, market demand, reliability design, among others (Lee, et al, 2010, pp. 185-191).

Outside of the computer networks, many proprietary wireless technologies ...