Lg Electronics LW1100N User Manual

 

 

Page 5 of 39

 

A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a flexible data communication system implemented  as an 

extension to, or as an  alternative for, a wired LAN within a  building or campus. Using 

electromagnetic waves, WLANs transmit and  receive data over the air, minimizing the 

need for wired connections. Thus, WLANs combine data connectivity with user mobility, 

and, through simplified configuration, enable movable LANs. WLANs have gained strong 

popularity in a number  of vertical markets, including the health-care, retail, 

manufacturing, warehousing, and academic arenas. These industries have profited from 

the productivity gains of using hand-held terminals and notebook computers to transmit 

real-time information to centralized hosts for processing. Today  WLANs are becoming 

more widely recognized as a general-purpose connectivity alternative for a broad range 

of business customers. 

 

 

Wireless LANs use electromagnetic airwaves (radio and infrared) to communicate 

information from one point to another without relying on any physical connection. Radio 

waves are often referred to as radio carriers because they simply perform the function of 

delivering energy to a remote receiver. The data being transmitted is superimposed on 

the radio carrier so that it can be accurately extracted at the receiving end. This is 

generally  referred to as modulation of the carrier by the information being  transmitted. 

Once data is superimposed (modulated) onto the radio carrier, the radio signal occupies 

more than a single frequency, since the frequency  or bit rate of the modulating 

information adds to the carrier. 

Multiple radio carriers can exist in the same space at the same time without interfering 

with each other if the  radio waves are transmitted on different radio frequencies. To 

extract data, a radio receiver tunes in (or selects) one radio frequency while rejecting all 

other radio signals on different frequencies. 

In a typical WLAN configuration, a transmitter/receiver (transceiver) device, called an 

access point,  connects  to the wired network from a fixed location using standard 

Ethernet cable. At a minimum, the access point  receives, buffers, and transmits data 

between the WLAN and the wired network infrastructure. A single  access point can 

support a small group of users and can function within a range of less than one hundred