WLAN Standard 802.11b

Most WLANs today conform to IEEE standard 802.11b, which uses the 2.4-GHz band and provides a maximum signaling rate of 11 Mbps, with average throughput in the range of 4 to 6 Mbps. In a typical office environment, 802.11b's maximum range is about 250 feet (76 meters) at the lowest speed, and about 100 feet (33 meters) at the highest speed.

Bluetooth devices, 2.4-GHz cordless phones, and microwave ovens are sources of interference (and therefore degraded performance) for 802.11b networks. 802.11b networks can also cause interference to each other: the fourteen channels of the 802.11b specification are apportioned in such a way that no more than three can be used in the same area without frequency overlap.

802.11b equipment has been shipping in quantity for several years, so you will find that products are plentiful and affordable.

802.11b+

Texas Instruments (TI) has developed a modulation technique called Packet Binary Convolutional Code (PBCC) that can provide signaling rates of 22 and 33 Mbps. TI produces 802.11b-based chipsets that also support 22-Mbps PBCC. Products that incorporate these chipsets are referred to as 802.11b+ devices. They are fully 802.11b compliant, and when communicating with each other can automatically use the vendor-specific 22-Mbps signaling rate. Another TI enhancement that can be used between 802.11b+ devices is 4X mode, which uses a larger maximum packet size -- 4000 bytes -- to reduce overhead and increase throughput by as much as a third.