Enhanced Quality of Service (QoS) has to be guaranteed in order for 802.11 to have a long-term sustained survival. The standard itself took seven years to develop and some technologists already have doubts on the large-scale appeal to the standard. There have also been issues related to 40-bit encryption that it incorporates since it is generally accepted that 40-bit is not considered as "industrial strength" LAN coding scheme. Some IT shops have reported roaming to be not very reliable in wireless LANs. Some believe that the hand-off from one to another access point is far from being perfect. Another challenge to 802.11 is High Performance Radio LAN, or HiperLAN standard as developed by European Telecom Standards Institute (ETSI) subtechnical committee RES10. HiperLAN operates at 5.12-5.30 GHz and 17.1 to 17.3 GHz bands.

In spite of all these reasonable concerns, the future for 802.11 looks very strong and promising. The wireless LAN industry is estimated to grow to $3.0 billion by the year 2005. With mobile computing becoming a necessity in most organizations, with new product development and support from vendors, with tumbling costs of products, and with blessings from IEEE, the 802.11 is here to stay. It is showing the way to a promised land of interoperable, transparent and secured mobile computing in an enterprise-wide domain.

Subhash Nigam, manager, Information Technology Services, Motorola, Inc.