The use of wireless local area networks (WLANs) has become increasingly popular. A WLAN is attractive for a number of reasons. It’s very flexible and can be installed anywhere. For a small company, the expense of installing a fixed network infrastructure might not be justified. Regulations on historical buildings might not permit the laying of cables that is required for installing a wired network infrastructure. In an enterprise, it extends access to the corporate local area network (LAN).

Another popular use of WLANs is to provide broadband Internet access at public places such as cafes and airports – this service is known as hot spots. At conferences where there is a high number of people convening for short period of time, WLANs are used to provide participants with access to the Internet since deploying a wired LAN for such short periods is not practical.

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