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Foreword

Over the last 10 years, the impact of wireless communications on the way we live
and do business has been surpassed only by the impact of the Internet. Cellular
phones, pagers, and wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs) have become so com-
monplace in our lives that it is easy to forget that 10 years ago, they were a rarity. But
wireless communications technology is still in its infancy, and the next stage of its
development will be in supplementing or replacing the network infrastructure that
was traditionally “wired” as well as enabling network infrastructures that previously
could only be imagined. From local coffee shops to commercial inventory control
systems, within restaurants and throughout public airports, wireless commerce is
beginning to challenge the exchange system that our modern world currently
embraces, by accessing central pools of information and communicating directly
between users and between the devices themselves.
Copyright © 2002. Elsevier Science & Technology Books. All rights reserved.

No longer are our choices restricted by the shortfalls of processing and battery
power, operating system efficiencies, or heat dissipation within the small footprint of
the mobile device. Rather, we are limited only by the practical application of these
technologies. How will we access information? How will we integrate multiple hard-
ware and software technologies into intelligent and useable form factors? Not all
business models necessarily imply the use of a single terminal to supply the user with
voice, video, and data services. Ergonomic factors may dictate that voice services are
maintained privately while data exchange and video information is easily viewable
from a specified distance, perhaps on complementary devices.
As network engineers, the challenges before us include the seamless distribution
of information between seemingly incompatible software and hardware standards. In
addition, we will be challenged by narrower bandwidths to develop highly efficient
means of transport in order to fully leverage wireless technologies.
Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) technology is a reliable and convenient method of pro-
viding immediate, highly flexible, and pedestrian-speed mobile data network access.
xxv

Syngress. Building a Cisco Wireless Lan, Elsevier Science & Technology Books, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/univunirsp/detail.action?docID=139957.
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169_cisco_wlan_fore.qxd 4/16/02 12:07 PM Page xxvi

xxvi Preface

IEEE 802.11-based products offered by Cisco Systems have quickly become one of
the foundational technologies fostering the untethering of data communications in
the same way cordless telephony enhances local mobility for residential voice com-
munications.
Wi-Fi, however, is significantly more complex than cordless telephony; loss, cov-
erage, and bandwidth requirements are much more stringent, not to mention that
direct sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) is inherently more complicated than fre-
quency division multiple access (FDMA) and time division multiple access (TDMA).
More important, the proliferation of wireless LANs in corporate environments has
resulted in interesting security challenges.
Many organizations do not invoke IEEE security features. In addition, the current
IEEE 802.11 standard authentication techniques of using Service Set Identifiers
(SSID) and Media Access Control (MAC) addressing do not provide strong authenti-
cation. And although Wired Equivalent Protocol (WEP) combines access control, data
privacy, and data integrity using an underlying algorithm, it can also be broken via
passive monitoring with freely available monitoring software such as AirSnort.
Fortunately, Cisco offers enhanced capabilities to mitigate some weaknesses. Of
course, proper design and implementation are critically important; the design should
exclude direct wireless access point connectivity to the internal network, strong secu-
rity mechanisms must be implemented at different levels, and strict security policies
must be enforced.With 802.11b access speed ranging from 1 Mbps up to 11 Mbps,
and distances reaching from 500 feet indoors to as much as 5 kilometers outdoors, a
Copyright © 2002. Elsevier Science & Technology Books. All rights reserved.

wireless LAN could offer an unwanted user powerful network access.

Connectivity, availability, and capacity issues are resolved with proper frequency
planning and testing. Security concerns are properly addressed with unobtrusive
testing, implementation of proper policies, and firewalls. Network addressing must
also be implemented consistently.
Callisma regularly assists customers with these considerations.This book will edu-
cate readers on some of the theory and practical information required to successfully
and safely deploy Wi-Fi.
—Ralph Troupe
President and CEO, Callisma

www.syngress.com
Syngress. Building a Cisco Wireless Lan, Elsevier Science & Technology Books, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/univunirsp/detail.action?docID=139957.
Created from univunirsp on 2023-09-05 03:52:40.