Wireless Technology

Wireless mentioned here means "wireless networking" or WiFi technology. It becomes one of the hottest issue among library technical trends. It has been implemented in many libraries so far. But how it works anyway? By using the wireless connection, a user can access the Internet via electromagnetic airwaves, rather than wire or cable. Telecommunication charges are eliminated, but an Internet service provider is still required to gain access to the Internet. Wireless technology enables the ISP to offer greater bandwidth without the expense of adding cable to its own connection. However, in most wireless systems "line of sight" is required, which means that the radio antenna installed at a library must have an unobstructed path to the antenna maintained by the ISP. Each client antenna can serve 50-100 workstations at T1 speed.(ODLIS)

Originally WLAN hardware was so expensive that it was only used as an alternative to cabled LAN in places where cabling was difficult or impossible. Such places could be old protected buildings or classrooms, although the restricted range of the 802.11b (typically 30ft.) limits its use to smaller buildings. WLAN components are now cheap enough to be used in the home, with many being set-up so that one PC (a parent's PC, for example) can be used to share an Internet connection with the whole family (whilst retaining access control at the parents' PC).

Early development included industry-specific solutions and proprietary protocols, but at the end of the 1990s these were replaced by standards, primarily the various versions of IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) (see separate articles) and HomeRF (2 Mbit/s, intended for home use, unknown in the UK). An alternative ATM-like 5 GHz standardized technology, HIPERLAN, has so far not succeeded in the market, and with the release of the faster 54 Mbit/s 802.11a (5 GHz) and 802.11g (2.4 GHz) standards, almost certainly never will. (Based on Wikipedia)

Some advantages of wireless networking include it allows LANs to be deployed without cabling, potentially reducing the costs of network deployment and expansion; many Wi-Fi networks support roaming, in which a mobile client station such as a laptop computer can move from one access point to another as the user moves around a building or area; many access points and network interfaces support various degrees of encryption to protect traffic from interception, etc.

Some disadvantages are power consumption is fairly high compared to other standards, making battery life and heat a concern; the most common wireless encryption standard, Wired Equivalent Privacy or WEP, has been shown to be easily breakable even when correctly configured; free access points (or improperly configured access points) may be used by a hacker to anonymously initiate an attack that would be impossible to track beyond the owner of the access point.

Some more in-depth readings on this topic:

From Security Focus - Basic Security Mechanisms for Wireless Networks

This article gives an overview of wireless networks and security issues. It lists several measures users can implement in order to make their networks more secure.

From Wi-Fi Alliance - Wi-Fi Security

An index of articles on many different security concerns about wireless networks.

Force Field Wireless

An interesting company Web site that offers security advice for wireless networks. In addition they sell a wide range of wireless network security products including radio wave blocking paint.

From Eweek - 802.11i Strengthens Wi-Fi Security

An article that describes the 802.11i standard and its wireless networking security impact.

Wireless Libraries Blog

A blog by Bill Drew that discusses developments in wireless technologies related to libraries.

W ireless Internet Resource Channel

Wireless.com Everything Wireless

Wireless LAN resources for Linux

Back to Top