Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)

This chapter describes the fundamentals of the wireless local area network (WLAN) technology. Once the WLAN system became popular, a number of inherent security flaws were discovered and fixed. The chapter focuses on these issues and shows how WLAN can be used securely. It also focuses on functionalities that were introduced in the subsequent versions of the 802.11 specification. The chapter also describes the new functions of the high throughput physical layer (HT PHY) and the medium access control (MAC) layer extensions that are defined as mandatory in the IEEE 802.11a standard. To speed up the introduction of the quality of service (QoS) extensions, the Wi‐Fi alliance has created the Wi‐Fi Multimedia (WMM) specification, which is based on IEEE 802.11e. The chapter describes the use of the WLAN and long term evolution (LTE) for Internet connectivity outside of homes and offices.