HiperLAN is a wireless network protocol created by ETSI as an alternative to IEEE 802.11. HiperLAN/1 had a data transfer rate of 10 Mbit/s, while HiperLAN/2 had a maximum of 54 Mbit/s and emphasized media transmission quality and secure encryption. While both protocols are now comparable in terms of security, HiperLAN still has an advantage in multimedia transmissions. The development of the 802.11n standard has not been challenged by a new version of HiperLAN.
High Performance Radio Local Area Network (HiperLAN) is one of the wireless network protocols in Europe. It is an alternative to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards. The HiperLAN standard was created by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The original goal of the HiperLAN standard was to create a protocol that has a higher data transfer rate than the 802.11 standard.
The HiperLAN/1 protocol was approved in 1996. This version of the protocol has a range of 50 meters. The data transfer rate was 10 Megabits per second (Mbit/s), while the video transfer rate was 2 Mbit/s. This was a significant improvement over the competing 802.11 standard of the time, which featured a data transfer rate of only 2 Mbit/s.
The HiperLAN/2 protocol had a maximum data transfer rate of 54 Mbit/s. This data transfer rate is comparable to the maximum transfer rate of the 802.11a standard. Actual transfer speed varies for these standards based on a number of variables.
HiperLAN/2 has placed a high degree of emphasis on improving the quality of media-related transfers over the wireless connection. Wireless network protocols require a higher degree of error checking than wired LAN connections. Increasing the level of error checking will increase the quality of media transmissions but will also increase latency. High Performance Radio LAN/2 focused on maximizing error checking involved in media transmission at the cost of a slight increase in latency experienced with media connections.
Another area where HiperLAN/2 took a different approach than 802.11 was in the type of security algorithms implemented. At this point, 802.11 relied on the insecure Wired Equivalent Policy (WEP) security system. High Performance Radio LAN/2 used Secure Data Encryption Standard (DES) or Triple DES security algorithms. This helped ensure the security of information on the wireless network.
With the introduction of the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and WPA2 security algorithms, the 802.11 standard began to compete with the High Performance Radio LAN protocol in terms of security. This has made the question of determining the best protocol much more difficult. In terms of overall data transfer performance, the two protocols are about equal. The High Performance Radio LAN protocol still has the advantage in terms of quality of multimedia transmissions.
The 802.11 standard continued to develop and integrated some of the underlying systems used in the High Performance Radio LAN protocol into its own protocol. This has led to the general improvement of the 802.11 standard. As of September 2010, the development of the 802.11n standard has not been challenged by the development of another version of the HiperLAN protocol.
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