Market Trends

When discussing trends in Wi-Fi equipment, it is important to detail
how we got to this state in the marketplace. Standards such as HomeRF
have become somewhat obsolete when compared to either 802.11 or
Bluetooth. As much as Bluetooth has a good market presence for wireless
devices, it is clear that 802.11 is holding on strongly to the market
lead with built-in support in the major operating systems, including
Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Lindows OS. Lindows OS is a UNIX-based
operating system being developed in San Diego and has integrated support
for 802.11. Lindows is a version of Linux that has the ability to run some Windows applications and function normally in a Windows-based
networking environment.

Over the past decade, the primary market for WLANs has been corporate
enterprise infrastructures which required that their users be able to
use mobile applications throughout the geography of their production
plants. Today, most residential and home office users have grown to need
this capability just to do business in the tight confines of their working
environment, where it is impractical to create a wired LAN infrastructure.
The most prevalent problem for home users is that fact that WLANs
have such poor security. In most cases wireless equipment vendors configure
access points and wireless network cards to function in an “open
system” by default, without so much as warning the average user to
change the default settings. Integrated security, which was supposed to
be one of the strengths of wireless equipment, is actually one of the most
easily exploited weaknesses.

WLAN vendors are now working on two elements:

1. Educating consumers to activate integrated encryption and change
default “open system” settings so that hackers can’t easily access their
WLANs just by driving down the street with their 802.11b laptops set
to “promiscuous mode,” waiting to log into your private network.

2. Enhancing the encryption capabilities of their hardware. WEP is
evolving a new (and theoretically) more powerful standard called
WEP 2 that will enhance the security of wireless connections. Unfortunately,
since WEP 2 is based on the flawed version of the original
WEP, it is unlikely this capability will pose any obstacle for most
determined hackers, who can force their way into accessing or eavesdropping
on your wireless network.