Wireless Connectivity Options for the Pocket PC

Organizations wishing to wirelessly connect Pocket PCs (PPCs) to their networks or to the Internet are faced with a plethora of confusing technologies, options, and acronyms. However, to truly evaluate the available options and decide which is appropriate for various business needs, a basic understanding of the key technologies is important.

The options fall into three basic groups of technologies: wireless LANs, wireless WANs, and personal area networks.

Wireless LANS

IEEE 802.11b–based wireless local-area networks (WLANs) are small radio-based data networks operating in the 2.4GHz band. Each access point in the network is connected to an Ethernet LAN and has a range of approximately 100 meters. With overlapping cells, users can roam from one cell to another without losing their connection to the network.

Over the last few years, the use of wireless 802.11b LANs has exploded, for two reasons:

• Its bandwidth has increased to 11Mbps, which is faster than conventional Ethernet.
• The