Windows XP Wireless Connectivity

In an effort to provide its latest version of Windows with the ability to
deal seamlessly with wireless networking capabilities, Microsoft has
worked with a number of companies that are within the IEEE standards
groups to define a “port-based network access control” standard that
better defines 802.11-based wireless networks.
The fundamental understanding behind 802.11 is that it does not
require the same WEP keys to be used by all of its stations because it
allows a station to maintain two distinct sets of shared keys: a per-station
unicast session key and a multicast/global key.
Existing 802.11 deployments currently support only “shared” multicast/
global keys; however, this will undoubtedly change by 2005 to support
per-station unicast session keys.
Managing these types of keys is often very difficult; the current 802.11
security for access control does not scale well for either large network
infrastructures or ad hoc networks. Furthermore, there is no definable
interaccess point protocol (IAPP), which makes it very difficult to manage
keys when stations actively roam from one access point to another.
Without IAPP, authentication must restart upon each new connection.
802.11 is a standard for network access control dealing with each specific
port. It is used to offer authenticated network access to users. When
dealing with network access control for specific ports, you need to
employ the specific physical parameters of the switched LAN itself in
order to offer a method of authenticating devices on your LAN. It is also
very useful as a means of preventing access to a given port whenever
you are unable to adequately authenticate a wireless user attempting to
use your WLAN.