An Overview of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)

Abstract: Wireless Communication is an application of science and technology that has come to be vital for modern existence. From the early radio and telephone to current devices such as mobile phones and laptops, accessing the global network has become the most essential and indispensable part of our lifestyle. Wireless communication is an ever developing field, and the future holds many possibilities in this area. One expectation for the future in this field is that, the devices can be developed to support communication with higher data rates and more security. Research in this area suggests that a dominant means of supporting such communication capabilities will be through the use of Wireless LANs. As the deployment of Wireless LAN increases well around the globe, it is increasingly important for us to understand different technologies and to select the most appropriate one. This paper provides a detailed study of the available wireless LAN technologies and the concerned issues, will give a brief description of what wireless LANs are, the need of Wireless LAN, History of wireless LAN, advantages of Wireless Networks, with summarizing the related work on WLAN in academic area, Wireless LAN technologies, some risks attacks against wireless technologies, suggesting some recommendations to protect wireless LAN network from attack, Finally we propose some research issues should be focused on in the future.