The first wave of wireless LANs saw autonomous access points being deployed in

key verticals such as healthcare, retail and manufacturing where there was

overwhelming business advantage to having users and devices connecting to the

network wirelessly. These autonomous (standalone or fat) access points were

relatively simple to deploy but lacked the manageability, mobility, and security

features that enterprises required, even for convenience networks. The lack of

manageability and control increased the operational costs of these wireless LANs.

The time associated with carrying out pre-installation site surveys, AP location

tuning, periodic post-installation surveys and the per-AP configuration and image

updating drove organizations to look for alternative solutions.

802.11n promises to bring revolutionary advances in bandwidth, throughput, and

reliability to the wireless LAN. It will also have a perhaps unforeseen impact on

the wired network, as well. Bandwidth, throughput and reliability will now

become an end-to-end network issue, particularly in cases where the WLAN is

deployed as network infrastructure rather than as an overlay.