Jim Geier

A major task in designing a wireless LAN is identifying the number and location of access points. This involves performing a radio frequency (RF) site survey in order to test specific access point locations as the basis for determining the range boundaries of access points within the actual facility. The results of this testing indicates […]

A traditional Internet protocol (IP) address plan calls for a single subnet for the entire wireless LAN (WLAN). This is simple to implement, and it provide no barriers to effective user roaming. Some companies, however, want to implement multiple IP subnets across a common WLAN in order to make network management easier, facilitate location-based services, […]

The Wi-Fi Alliance (which began its work known as the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance or WECA before a name change last year) is an international, nonprofit organization focusing on the manufacturing, marketing, and interoperability of 802.11 wireless LAN products. The Alliance is the group that pushes the term "Wi-Fi" to cover all forms of 802.11-based […]

Price: $799 MSRP The Colubris Networks CN1050 Wireless Access Point (which is really a router for getting Internet access) is 802.11b-capable using a Proxim ORiNOCO radio network card. The CN1050 package came with everything needed to set it up, including a power adaptor, Ethernet cable, installation CD, and even mounting screws. The CN1050 focuses heavily […]

A service set identifier (SSID) is a unique label that distinguishes one WLAN from another. Wireless devices use the SSID to establish and maintain connectivity. As part of the association process, a wireless network interface card (NIC) must have the same SSID as the access point. An SSID contains up to 32 alphanumeric characters, which […]

More and more households and businesses today are using cordless phones, made by a variety of companies, including Panasonic, Siemens, and Sony. The cordless phones supposedly sound clearer and have much better range than wired phones. Of course they also provide mobility. Cordless phones operate on 3 different frequencies, 900MHz, 2.4GHz, and 5GHz. Do those […]

Wireless LANs are certainly the wave of the future for enterprise networking. Everywhere you look, there is a company deploying a WLAN into their daily operations. And as they do so, many companies are finding out that they must now manage it. If an organization can not effectively manage their WLAN, benefits quickly diminish and […]

Wireless LANs are useful for a wide range of applications. There are some applications, however, that are more effective and efficient than others. Let’s take a look at several "killer applications," which are convincing situations that prompt the use of WLANs. Sharing Internet Access The most compelling reason to install a WLAN is to share […]

As we’ve discussed in a previous tutorial, 802.11 Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) doesn’t provide enough security for most enterprise wireless LAN applications. Because of static key usage, it’s fairly easy to crack WEP with off-the-shelf tools. This motivates IT managers to use stronger dynamic forms of WEP. The problem to date, however, is that these […]

The primary IEEE 802.11 standards in use today are 802.11a and 802.11b, which both use radio waves for transferring information wirelessly over a network. Few people realize, however, that the 802.11 standard also includes the 802.11 Infrared (IR) Physical Layer. 802.11 IR defines 1Mbps and 2Mbps operation by bouncing light off ceilings and walls to […]

In a previous tutorial, we discussed the inner workings of the 802.11b Physical (PHY) Layer. Similar to 802.11b, the 802.11a PHY Layer specifies the transmission and reception of 802.11 frames. Now we’ll take a look inside the 802.11a PHY Layer, which uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology to support operation of up to 54Mbps […]

HiperLAN/2, which stands for High Performance Radio Local Area Network, is a wireless LAN standard developed by the Broadband Radio Access Networks (BRAN) division of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). HiperLAN/2 defines a very efficient, high-speed wireless LAN technology that fully meets the requirements of Europe’s spectrum regulatory. Similar to IEEE 802.11a, HiperLAN/2 operates […]