ABSTRACT
In the past few years, networking technology has advanced very rapidly. Internet access is a standard commodity, and most companies use LANs (local area networks) to forward information between employees. Fiber optics deployment allowed high-speed Internet access for personal use. The next step in technological development is to provide high-quality Internet access to nomadic users who want to check their mail or keep in touch with their offices, using portable devices such as cell phones, laptops, or PDAs (personal digital assistants). WLANs (wireless LANs) have emerged to fill this growing demand, with the WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) technology, which provides such an access to a user who is in the physical neighborhood of an access point. These access points are being deployed at densely populated stations such as
airports. Despite its advantages, this technology is still very restrictive, as users must be in the communicating range of an access point to use it. This means that a huge number of access points must be installed to have a seamless wireless network available.
