Industrial Sites in Software

Generation Data Matrix ECC200 in Software Industrial Sites

Warehouses and manufacturing environments are excellent applications of WLAN solutions These environments have often existed for many years and lack the proper cabling to reach even the speeds that wireless LANs can currently provide At the

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same time, motors and equipment used in these environments can cause interference problems, so an effective site survey is essential Storage racks and other materials in and around these types of environments can also be problematic

Hospitals can benefit from wireless LAN technology in order to have roaming access to patient records as well as pharmacy inventory information Medical prescriptions can be sent to the hospital pharmacy directly from the patient s rooms, and nurses can give instant digital feedback using PDAs as they make their rounds throughout the hospital Of course, security will be a top priority in healthcare installations, so newer equipment supporting the more recent security provisions will be needed

Municipalities and law enforcement communications usually take place in licensed or reserved frequencies; however, emergency networks and WLANs located in headquarters buildings can still take advantage of license-free standard WLAN technology

The speeds of wired networking technologies have increased over the past two decades to the point that having gigabits of bandwidth is not unusual Wireless LANs still have a long way to go to catch up to the speed of wired LANs; however, they provide an exceptional advantage in mobility Can you imagine moving around your facility and plugging a cable into a port every time you need to access the network This would be both frustrating and time consuming There are many scenarios in which the mobility provided by wireless networking is advantageous In the world of healthcare, wireless abilities provide tremendous opportunities A nurse can report on a patient s condition from his or her room to a centralized database without having to physically connect to the network A doctor can prescribe medicines and send the hospital pharmacy instant notification of that prescription These capabilities not only improve efficiency, but they also improve the healthcare provided by the hospital Imagine being able to enter items into inventory from any location in a warehouse facility Of equal importance, you can make provisions to remove items from inventory in an automated fashion such that no human need be involved

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These advancements allow for reduced costs and greater accuracy in inventory management Figure 1-2 demonstrates the benefit of wireless mobility in an inventory-management scenario Have you ever been in a meeting and wished you could connect to the network and retrieve that file you forgot to bring along With a wireless network, you can move your laptop from your office to a conference room no cables needed You can roam throughout the building with full network capabilities from any location, assuming proper wireless coverage has been provided These are just a few of the many mobility benefits introduced with wireless networking

A wireless Internet service provider (WISP) is an Internet service provider (ISP) that is accessed using wireless technologies WISPs often fulfill the need at the last mile Last mile refers to the last section that must be spanned to reach remote customers It can be very expensive and, without wireless, sometimes impractical Often these WISPs will also lease bandwidth to businesses that require Internet access but are too far from DSL stations and have no other options WISPs may use IEEE 80211 technologies for the entire delivery, or they may use other wireless technologies, like WiMAX (IEEE 80216), from the operations center to the delivery area and then use IEEE 80211 technologies within the delivery area Some WISPs will use WiMAX all the way to the end destination, and it will be up to the subscribers whether they wish to use IEEE 80211 technologies within their house or business Because WiMAX and IEEE 80211 use different frequencies (if the 80211 devices use the 24 GHz spectrum), there should be no conflicts or interference

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