Understanding Wireless Networking

Wireless networking has been around for some time, but many people in the early days of wireless networking abandoned it due to compatibility problems and a general lack of reliability. Wireless networking has come a long way since then, and Windows XP Professional includes a number of features that support common wireless networking standards and hardware. In short, if you need a wireless network, Windows XP has what you need to create and configure it.

Infrared
Infrared wireless uses an infrared beam to transmit data from one device to the next, and is most often used in PC devices. For example, wireless keyboards, mice, printers, and game devices can connect with an infrared port on your computer. Additionally, laptops and PDAs can connect with a desktop computer for data transfer. Infrared is a great solution for device-to-PC connectivity, but in terms of an actual LAN, infrared is not a preferred connectivity method.

Wireless personal area networks (WPANs)
A WPAN is a personal area network, meaning it resides in one generalized space, such as a room. In other words, a personal area space is the area surrounding a person. WPANs are useful for wireless network computing in one location, or wireless networking between PDAs, cell phones, laptop computers, and so on. WPANs can make use of infrared connections for objects that are very close, or you can use Bluetooth, which communicates through radio waves up to 30 feet. The IEEE has established a working group for the development of WPANs, numbered 802.15. You can learn more about the standard by simply searching for IEEE 802.15 on any search engine.

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs)
A WLAN is a wireless network that exists within one geographical location, such as in a home, office building, school, or other such structure. The IEEE 802.11 standard for WLANs defines transfer rates at 1–2 Mbps. As you can see, the 802.11 standard was rather slow. However, today, the new IEEE standard for WLAN networking is 802.11b, which defines data transfer rates of up to 11 Mbps using a 2.4 GHz frequency band. 802.11b is the popular standard today, which gives you speeds comparable to a typical Ethernet network.

Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WMANs)
WMANs allow communication between different locations within a single metropolitan area. For example, let’s say your company resides in New York, but there are three offices in different locations in the city. Using wireless technologies, a WMAN could be created so that users between those different offices could connect.

Wireless wide area networks (WWANs)
A WWAN connects WLANs that are separated over wide geographic areas. For example, if your company has offices in New York, Seattle, and Dallas, a WWAN could be used to wirelessly connect the different WAN network segments. WWAN technologies involve the use of satellite communications maintained by service providers, and use the same technologies used in cellular phones and wireless PDAs.