WLAN

WLAN, which stands for Wireless Local Area Network, is the technology of networking of a number of computers with each other without requiring the usage of wires. Due to a number of WLAN's advantages such as ease of installation, convenience, deployment, mobility, expandability, productivity and cost, the popularity of WLAN has increased among home users. Wireless access is now offered as a service, paid or sometimes free, to customers of public businesses such as coffee shops or shopping malls.

There are three types of WLANs. 

The first, peer-to-peer (P2P), enables wireless devices to directly communicate with each other without requiring the involvement of central access points. 

The second WLAN type, which is a bridge, connects networks of different types, such as a wireless network to a wired Ethernet network. 

The third type is the wireless distribution system, where access points are used as repeaters in place of connecting all access points in a network using wires.

WLAN networking signals may be subject to interference and complex propagation effects like multipath or Ricidian fading. WLANs also tend to have a limited range, requiring repeaters or additional access points in order to achieve greater range. They also have a slow data transmission rate of 1 - 108 Mbps, compared to wired networks which can run at rates of 100 Mbps to several Gbps. The built-in congestion avoidance of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) hindered the transmission speed of wireless networks.