Q&A
How does a business benefit from a WLAN?
By allowing work to happen anywhere, wireless networks don't simply increase productivity and provide convenience. They can redefine enterprise goals and how they're achieved—in offices, factories, healthcare facilities, and schools.
How does a WLAN work?
Like broadcast media, a WLAN transmits information over radio waves. Information is sent in packets. The packets contain layers with labels and instructions that work along with unique MAC (Media Access Control) addresses assigned to endpoints to enable routing to intended locations.
How is a WLAN created?
A WLAN can be configured in one of two ways:
Infrastructure: A home or office Wi-Fi network is an example of a WLAN set up in infrastructure mode. The endpoints are all connected, and they communicate with each other through a base station, which may also provide internet access.
A basic infrastructure WLAN can be set up with just a few parts: a wireless router, which acts as the base station, and endpoints. Endpoints can be computers, mobile devices, printers, or other devices. In most cases, the wireless router is also the internet connection.
Ad hoc: In this setup, a WLAN connects endpoints such as computer workstations and mobile devices without the use of a base station. Wi-Fi Direct technology is commonly used for an ad hoc wireless network. An ad hoc WLAN is easy to set up and can provide basic peer-to-peer (P2P) communication.
An ad hoc WLAN needs only two or more endpoints with built-in radio transmission, such as computers or mobile devices. After adjusting network settings for ad hoc mode, one user initiates the network and becomes visible to the others.
Is a WLAN secure?
A WLAN is more vulnerable to being breached than a physical network. With a wired network, a bad actor must gain physical access to an internal network or breach an external firewall. To access a WLAN, a bad actor only needs to be within range of the network.
The most basic method of securing a WLAN is to use MAC addresses to deny access to unauthorized stations. However, determined adversaries may be able to join networks by disguising their identity as an authorized address.
The most common security method for a WLAN is encryption, including Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), with WPA2 as the standard authentication method.
How does roaming work on a WLAN?
For any sized network, access points can extend the area of access.
Wi-Fi standards are designed to allow a nonstationary user's connection to jump from one access point to another, though some users and applications may experience brief dropouts. Even with nonoverlapping access points, a user's connection is simply paused until connection with the next access point.
Additional access points can be wired or wireless. When access points overlap, they can be configured to help optimize the network by sharing and managing loads.
What is a mesh network?
A mesh network extends a WLAN's reach and performance by using numerous access points that connect with each other wirelessly. A mesh network provides multiple transmission paths. With intelligent algorithms, it can manage routing for better performance.