Regulations that constrain operations in this band ultimately limit WLAN throughput and range. The IEEE is developing a new standard for 802.11a, specifying efficient modulation methods over indoor and outdoor wireless environments that and attain speeds of 54 Mbps. Even as we speak, vendors continue to combine 802.11b standards with proprietary innovations to increase range and throughput over wireless LANs. For example, ShareWave tweaked 802.11b to optimize the delivery of multimedia content. Today, there are hundreds of products operating on the 802.11b standard.
Key differentiators are cost and power consumption, particularly in PC cards used by mobile devices.
Many carry power over a spare Ethernet pair to ceiling-mounted units. Key features include enterprise-class administration, site survey tools, and confidentiality. Cisco, OverLAN, and Lucent are a few of the vendors in this market. Considerations here include range, throughput, and access control. This equipment list is not all encompassing, but it illustrates the breadth of products available on the market and suggests how the gear might be used to deliver high-speed Internet services.