Wireless Home Networking Simplified

Okay, Now the Wireless Part

The wired Ethernet protocol and LANs had been around for a long time before wireless networking became practical. In fact, the world had pretty much standardized on wired Ethernet long before any of the wireless networking companies were even formed (the technology was there, but, as we mentioned earlier, there was no commercial need). In addition, the number of computers using wired Ethernet had exploded, and other devices were being connected to the network as well.

This meant that if someone wanted to have computers communicate over a wireless connection, they were going to have to create a standard that worked with, or at least be compatible with, the wired Ethernet standard. The millions of existing computers ...