The battle of the wireless Lans

The increasing popularity of wireless local area networks (Lans) in the enterprise space has caused the industry to split into different camps supporting different rival standards.

Wireless Lans (WLans) are a favourite with network managers who need to build temporary setups such as those found in theatres and concert halls, or for those wanting to link up groups of freelancers.

"You don't have to drill to set up a flexible network," said Mat Hanrahan, an analyst at Bloor Research. "That makes it easy to deploy."

WLans also enable mobile workers to pick up their laptop and walk to another office - or even outside the main building if they so desire on a sunny day - without interrupting their network connection.

But the ability to do just this has raised concerns about the security of WLans, and developers are now evaluating whether to incorporate port-level authentication technology into them to make them more secure.

Less interference
The WLan market is in the process of evolving, however, which means that manufacturers are currently jostling for position. At the moment, they are competing to launch the first 5Ghz frequency offerings, which are less likely to be affected by interference from microwaves and Bluetooth applications.

"The frequency of 5Ghz will be the standard for wireless networks," said Hanrahan. "As for speed, it may say 54Mbps on the tin, but it rarely reaches that in a working environment. Still, it's a useful bandwidth."

For now, 2.4Ghz is still the average frequency, and most WLans can deliver corporate data at speeds of 54Mbps and at 11Mbps when set up for domestic use and small businesses.

To make matters more complicated, however, different suppliers are using different technologies to achieve the same aim - while some have bet on Bluetooth, others prefer HomeRF.

This has led to a need for standards. The Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA), for one, has developed the Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) certification scheme. This is based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11b standard, with the intention of ensuring that conformant products from different vendors interoperate with each other.

The IEEE is not the only organisation involved in producing standards, however. Bluetooth may be a new arrival in the wireless space, but it has benefitted from over a year's worth of hype after being developed by an industry consortium of communications vendors including Intel, Motorola, Siemens and 3Com.

Unfortunately, however, the technology operates in the same 2.4Ghz frequency band as Wi-Fi products, and can interfere with their signalling - a situation that will intensify as more people start using it. The first products to come to market have a bandwidth of less than 1Mb and a range of approximately 10 metres.

Networking company Enterasys' general manager, Peter Beardmore, said that Bluetooth-enabled products will include PCs, printers, keyboards, personal digital assistants, phones and pagers. The specification is based on the same concept as a personal area network, which synchronises all the IT tools a user might need - a kind of wireless replacement for the serial cable.

And finally there is the HomeRF wireless industry consortium, which created the shared wireless access protocol. This is used as the basis for building frequency hopping technology aimed at home users and also operates in the 2.4Ghz frequency band.

Limited success
The body was initially set up by companies that didn't move to building Direct Sequence-based products alongside the industry leaders, but the success of the technology has been limited so far.

First, the range of HomeRF-based offerings, especially at higher bandwidths, is questionable. Most 1.6Mb products barely achieve the ranges of 11Mb Direct Sequence rivals.

The second challenge has been in the regulatory arena. Until 31 August, when the Federal Communications Commission ruled that shared wireless access protocol-based technology could run at rates of 10Mbps, it had not been approved for high-rate radio transmission and was limited to performance levels of 1.6Mbps.

The first 10Mbps offerings are likely to be shipped by Compaq, Cayman, Motorola and Intel.

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