Wireless network technologies connect without wires our high technology devices to either a high speed network or another device. In the past, wires would have to be placed from room to room or floor to floor, price for setup was costly, and the time to setup a wired network was vastly increased from a wireless network among other things.
Nowadays setting up a wireless network setup is really easy to do, and there are a ton of wireless products to choose from in addition to plenty of resources available to help you with setup and configuration of the wireless network if needed.
Different technologies can be chosen to best suit the application requirement and data transmission range can vary from a few meters to several kilometers. Wireless networks certainly offer new opportunities for industrial solutions, but they must be implemented with special attention to security.
Type of network |
Name |
Standard |
Frequency band |
Nominal range |
Maximum Bit rate |
WPAN |
Bluetooth |
IEEE 802.15.1 |
2.4 GHz |
10 m |
720 Kbps |
IrDA |
IrDA |
Infrared window 850-900 nm wavelength |
1 m |
16 Mbps |
|
ZigBee |
IEEE 802.15.4 |
868 MHz, 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz |
10 m |
250 Kbps |
|
UWB |
IEEE 802.15.3 |
3.1-10.6 GHz (USA) 3.4-4.8 GHz & 6-8.5 GHz (Europe) |
10 m |
480 Mbps |
|
WLAN |
Wi-Fi |
IEEE 802.11 |
2.4 / 5 GHz |
100 m |
1 Mbps |
IEEE 802.11a |
5 GHz |
100 m |
48 Mbps |
||
IEEE 802.11b |
2.4 GHz |
100 m |
11 Mbps |
||
IEEE 802.11g |
2.4 GHz |
100 m |
54 Mbps |
||
IEEE 802.11n |
2.4 / 5 GHz |
250 m |
600 Mbps |
||
IEEE 802.11ac |
5 GHz |
250 m |
1.3 Gbps |
||
WMAN |
WiMAX |
IEEE 802.16 |
2-11 GHz and 10-66 GHz |
50 km |
70 Mbps |
WWAN |
Cellular |
AMPS, GSM, GPRS, UMTS, HSDPA, LTE |
700 MHz, 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2600 MHz |
> 50 km |
1 Gbps |
Satellite |
DVB-S2 |
3-30 GHz |
> 50 km |
60 Mbps |