When the concept of a network without wires was first suggested more than two decades ago, it sparked the imagination of scientists, product vendors, and users around the globe eager for the convenience and flexibility of a free roaming conection. Unfortunately, as the variety of wireless solutions began to emerge, anticipation turned to disappointment.The first wave of solutions proved inadequate for the networking, portability, and security needs of a changing IT environment. While this has largely continued to be the case throughout the 1990s with most cell-based and office local area network (LAN)-based wireless technology deployments, great strides have been made specifically over the last two years to address the fundamental concerns impeding the full acceptance of wireless net- working in the mainstream of corporate IT departments and the small office.

In this chapter, you will learn about the technology that is available today for wireless data networking and what tomorrow’s wireless technologies have to offer.We will cover office LAN wireless solutions including 802.11, its subgroups (802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g) and HomeRF, cellular-based wireless data solutions including the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and i-Mode and the network infrastructures supporting them (in particular 2G, 2.5G, and 3G), and finally, 802.15 Personal Area Network (PAN) solutions such as Bluetooth. In addition, we will review some of the new standards being developed to create wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs) and other wireless data transmission solu- tions that are being proposed for commercial application.

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