The 802.11b and 802.11a wireless standards are fast becoming very popular in many IT departments and most major companies. These wireless networking options provide a way for you to nearly instantaneously connect a new device to your network without running CAT5 cables. The benefit of wireless is that you get not only the freedom of adding ad hoc PCs to your network but also the flexibility and security of CAT5.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) devices are a wireless hub of sorts. They plug into the network using traditional CAT5 cable and then broadcast for several hundred feet in all directions. This allows anyone nearby to connect to your network, provided you have allowed them to do so.
Wireless is great for companies that have to put PCs down on the shop floor or that have employees who carry notebook computers with them. Users can simply bring their notebooks into work, place them on their desks, and start working. No cables to plug in, no devices to configure, no lap-linking or hot-syncing to do--their notebook is their computer.
802.11b seems to be the more popular of the standards today. It is much less costly than the higher-speed 802.11a standard. 802.11a is 2 to 10 Mb, whereas 802.11a is 5 to 10 times that speed. You can purchase an 802.11b WAP today for about $80. It's not even worth doing a cost analysis on something that costs $80--just buy it; if you like it, great; if not, throw it away.
There is also a new emerging standard that is trying to provide a lower-cost, 802.11b-style price point but with the high-speed 802.11a performance levels. That standard is 802.11g. It runs at about 54 Mb, and the nice thing is, virtually every 802.11g WAP also supports the existing 802.11b standard. So if you already have 802.11b wireless cards in your notebook computers, they will continue to work with these new WAPs.
A WAP that supports both 802.11g and 802.11b currently costs about $150. If you want to buy high-end Cisco equipment, you're going to find prices starting at about $450 and going up quickly from there, depending on the features.
Many people have installed 802.11b WAP devices in their home. If you have a DSL or cable modem, WAPs provide a great environment for networking your home without running cables all over the place. Even if you don't have high-speed Internet connectivity at home, you can still use a WAP to connect your home computers together.
As wireless technologies evolve and become more readily available and affordable, I think you'll begin seeing them used much more frequently for home and office--particularly in older homes and in office buildings, where drilling holes and running cable can be dangerous and costly.
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