It seems that every day another letter is added to the 802.11 standard. First we had 802.11a and 802.11b. More recently e, f, g, h, and i have been thrown into the mix. Surely the pace of technological developments is encouraging, but the alphabet soup of standards can also lead to plenty of confusion. In other words, what do all those letters really mean for companies that are evaluating and deploying WLAN (wireless LAN) technologies? First, a brief history lesson may be in order. The original 802.11 standard, which was released by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) in June 1999, specifies wireless data rates of 1Mbps to 2Mbps operating in the 2.4GHz frequency. In late 1999, the standard was amended to include 802.11a and 802.11b. The 802.11b standard specifies data rates of up to 11Mbps in the 2.4GHz range, whereas 802.11a offers top speeds of 54Mbps in the 5GHz range — a less-crowded spectrum that cuts out much of the interference found in the 2.4GHz range. Because the a and b standards operate in different frequencies, they are not interoperable: 802.11a wireless cards cannot talk to 802.11b access points and vice versa. Enter 802.11g, a new standard that delivers 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz range and backwards compatibility with 802.11b. As more and more organizations saw the benefits of moving to wireless networks, and the number of deployments began to rise, the security of these new WLANs came under close scrutiny, and the findings were shocking to some. So many holes have been found in 802.11’s WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) standard for encrypting WLAN traffic that WEP has been rendered essentially useless for most organizations. In response, the IEEE has developed the 802.1x standard, an authentication framework for all 802-based LANs that provides centralized user authentication and automated key distribution. Whereas current WLAN standards are focused on authenticating the computer or wireless card, 802.1x enables user-based authentication. Meanwhile, the 802.11i working group is currently trying to fortify WEP by adding 128-bit encryption to the standard. With such a wealth of standards, it’s hardly surprising that so many products, such as the two reviewed here, have flooded the market. And it won’t be long before new standards promise even faster performance and tighter security. Technology Industry