WLANA Reaffirms Support for IEEE 802.11 as the Standard for Wireless LANs
Redwood City, Calif., June 29, 1998 — The Wireless LAN Association (WLANA) today announced industry progress toward wireless LAN interoperability and reaffirmed its support for IEEE 802.11 as the standard for enterprise wireless LANs in the 2.4 GHz band. The 802.11 standard, and the increase in industry-wide interoperability associated with it, is making way for continued growth in the wireless LAN industry. Improved product interoperability provides customers with investment protection and purchasing flexibility.
"The IEEE 802.11 standard and the recent progress toward interoperability help make enterprise customers more confident incorporating wireless LAN products into their networking infrastructures," said Jeff Abramowitz, president of WLANA. "This customer confidence is reflected in the strong revenue, product and application growth in the industry."
Wireless LAN solutions have been proven in data collection, point of sale, medical, financial and inventory applications and are gaining popularity in more 'horizontal' applications such as real-time information access to corporate intranets. Currently a $325 million industry, the wireless LAN market is growing more than 40 percent annually and industry analysts expect it to reach the $1 billion mark by the year 2000.
IEEE 802.11 Interoperability Progress
In recent months, there have been several announcements in the industry regarding progress toward IEEE 802.11 interoperability efforts. The University of New Hampshire (UNH) Interoperability Lab, located in Durham, NH, has formed an 802.11 wireless consortium in which spread spectrum vendors have begun to demonstrate and work toward interoperability to the standard. Members of the 802.11 UNH wireless consortium demonstrated this interoperability progress at the most recent Networld+Interop trade show held May 5-8, 1998 in Las Vegas, NV.
About the IEEE 802.11 Standard
IEEE 802.11 is an industry-approved standard for 2.4 GHz wireless LAN products. This standard is targeted at meeting the needs of customers using wireless LANs for both general purpose and industry specific mobility-based applications. The 802.11 standard specifies data rates of 1Mbps or 2Mbps and provides a common set of operational rules to facilitate the airwaves interoperability of wireless LAN products from different vendors. The standard was developed by the IEEE 802.11 committee and approved by its Standards Activity Board in July 1997.
About WLANA
The Wireless LAN Association is a non-profit consortium of wireless
LAN vendors that provides a clearinghouse of information about
wireless local area network applications, issues and trends. The
Alliance maintains an educational web site at http://www.wlana.com
with industry white papers, applications case studies and links
to related topics and member web sites. Current WLANA members
include:
3Com,
Aironet,
AMD,
Bay Networks Wireless LAN Group
(Formerly Netwave Technologies, Inc.),
BreezeCOM,
Cabletron Systems,
Harris Semiconductor,
Intermec Technologies,
Lucent Technologies,
Proxim, Inc.,
Raytheon Wireless Solutions and
Symbol Technologies.
For more information on WLANA and its educational efforts, call or write The Wireless LAN Association;
2723 Delaware Avenue, Redwood City, CA 94061; (650) 599-9260;
fax (650) 366-4218; email: [email protected].
WLANA Contact:
Greg DiCillo
Wireless Lan Association, Director
Voice: 440-602-WLANA (9526) Fax: 440-953-0039
E-mail: [email protected]
