Dear visitors! Custom essay writing service CuteEssay.com offers for your attention free essay samples. You can use them as models for your own writings and other personal purposes. These samples are custom written. You can not copy and paste them, you can not give these essays as your own. All sample essays are copyright protected and are the property of CuteEssay.

Wireless Local Area Networks 

Since the introduction of the Internet technology in the 20th century communication between computers became more advanced and diverse. Today computers and devices can communicate with each other not only over cable connection but through wireless communication technologies such as radio and infrared waves also. These technologies continue developing and became irreplaceable for millions people worldwide. This paper sheds light on modern wireless technologies and their features.

Wireless communication implies connection between two or more electronic devices as computers, notebooks, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) etc located in a certain area, which allow these devices to share information with each other without wires. This technology is widely used by individuals and companies to organize computer networks, data transmission, devices’ synchronization and other purposes. But mainly it is used for organizing WLANs – wireless local area networks. Such networks allow users to share information in a quick, secure and useful way; additionally WLANs allow users to access the Internet from almost any point of the terrestrial globe. Such communication implies many wireless access points to be allocated in a certain area which can be used to access the LAN and Internet by devices which support wireless communication and are situated in the effective area. These access points are connected to the server by cables so wireless technology can not functionate without cable connections completely however that may be. Mainly WLANs are based on radio or infrared waves which have certain differences and features.

Radio waves provide communication with different data rate – from 11Mbps up to 100Mbps; the radio frequency varies from 2.4Hz up to 5Hz – depending on the standard (there are four different standards developed by Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers). Radio based WLANs’ coverage can reach 150 meters and this makes such LANs to be very popular and universal. Radio waves can pass through the walls and may accidentally interact with other radio devices (e.g. microwave ovens, aeronautical equipment and cellular phones) which are in the coverage. Of course information transmitted over radio waves can be intercepted by some swindlers and for this reason all the information transmitted should be encrypted.

Infrared waves can not pass though the walls because they reverberate from the hard surfaces and thus they make their way from one device to another. Infrared waves provide data rate from 1Mbps up to 2Mbps at an extremely high frequency. Other electronic devices usually do not operate on such frequency and thus infrared waves do not interfere with radio waves. As far as infrared waves reverberate from different surfaces they do not provide wide ranges of communication but in this way they provide increased security of the data transmitted.

While summarizing the main points of this paper it is necessary to outline the main features of radio and infrared based WLANs. Radio based WLANs provide higher data rates, pass through the walls and cover higher ranges, but may interfere with other radio devices and the data transmitted is subject to interception. Infrared based WLANs provide average data rates and higher security, but do not cover large ranges and are limited within a building. Despite all advantages and disadvantages both technologies are widely used and constantly continue developing while targeting increased performance and decreased costs.

Statistics:
pages: 2
words: 540