Chapter 5.1

Wireless local area networks

Daniel Dobkin

5.1.1 Networks large and small

Although this book is primarily about voltages and waves, to make the text reasonably self-contained, we provide a brief introduction into the topic of networking in general and review the characteristics of several wireless local network technologies. In this review, the reader will encounter real examples of how the common concepts are put to use in getting data from one place to another wirelessly.

Our treatment is necessarily cursory and emphasizes aspects relevant to our main topic of wireless transmission and reception, giving short shrift to frame formats, management entities, and many other topics directed toward network implementation.

Data networks ...

Get Communications Engineering Desk Reference now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.