Wireless LAN

Wireless LAN is also referred to as WLAN. Though it is becoming popular, but there are still a number of issues that concern many. Such as the service a WLAN user receives is dependent on the radio propagation environment in which it operates. However, this environment may change from moment to moment and also over longer periods of time. This naturally affects speed of the connection. The link also goes at times.

As users move within the wireless set up, the number of people connected goes up and down. This is another challenge because when an access point needs to serve more users it becomes overloaded and this leads to congestion.

Because of these issues, reliability and availability of wireless LAN still remain a botheration. On the other hand, most users have become so used to high security and reliability that they expect the WLAN to also function as smoothly, which in many cases don?t.

Another security hazard is access. One way to ensure security is to restrict access through a MAC address. However even this can create problems because MAC addresses are transmitted in the clear, even in an encrypted system. Thus it becomes easy to sniff the network, pick up a MAC address and then gain access to the network by using that MAC address. Another attempt to restrict access was made by using the ?network name,? or SSID in IEEE 802.11 terminology. But, as with access control based in MAC addresses, here too, an outsider can easily guess the network name and access the network.

In spite of these concerns however, wireless LAN technology is here to stay. It is only a matter of a few years before it becomes as common as laptop computers are these days. And the fact is that, when something as radical as a wireless system appears, there is bound to be a few hitches. But slowly they will be a thing of the past.