TKK | Tietoverkkolaboratorio | Opetus
What are the concrete benefits of WLAN over wired networks? While the most obvious is mobility, there are advantages also in building and maintaining a wireless network. Let us look at the benefits more closely:
Mobility is a significant advantage of WLANs. User can access shared resources without looking for a place to plug in, anywhere in the organization. A wireless network allows users to be truly mobile as long as the mobile terminal is under the network coverage area.
The distance over which RF and IR waves can communicate depends on product design (including transmitted power and receiver design) and the propagation path, especially in indoor environments. Interactions with typical building objects, such as walls, metal, and even people, can affect the propagation of energy, and thus also the range and coverage of the system. IR is blocked by solid objects, which provides additional limitations. Most wireless LAN systems use RF, because radio waves can penetrate many indoor walls and surfaces. The range of a typical WLAN node is about 100 m. Coverage can be extended, and true freedom of mobility achieved via roaming. This means using access points to cover an area in such a way that their coverages overlap each other. Thereby the user can wander around and move from the coverage area of one access point to another without even knowing he has, and at the same time seamlessy maintain the connection between his node and an access point.
WLAN is easy to use and the users need very little new information to take advantage of WLANs. Because the WLAN is transparent to a user's network operating system, applications work in the same way as they do in wired LANs.
Installation of a WLAN system can be fast and easy and can eliminate the need to pull cable through walls and ceilings. Furthermore, wireless LAN enables networks to be set up where wires might be impossible to install.
Wireless networks can be designed to be extremely simple or complex. Wireless networks can support large numbers of nodes and large physical areas by adding access points to extend coverage.
Finally, the cost of installing and maintaining a WLAN is on average lower than the cost of installing and maintaining a traditional wired LAN, for two reasons. First, WLAN eliminates the direct costs of cabling and the labor associated with installing and repairing it. Second, because WLANs simplify moving, additions, and changes, the indirect costs of user downtime and administrative overhead are reduced.
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