Deployment Issues And Security Concerns With Wireless Local Area Networks: The Deployment Experience At A University

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses various issues pertaining to the deployment of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs).  The popularity of WLANs has steadily increased in the last two years and has led to their deployment in a variety of organizations.  Yet, making a business case for WLANs is an important step in their deployment.  In addition to highlighting the need for a business case for WLAN deployment, the paper outlines the reasons for, benefits of, and security problems associated with, their deployment.  The latter part of this paper presents a case study about the deployment of a WLAN at the University of Akron.  Therein, it discusses the context for the deployment, the process that was used to justify the deployment, and the efforts made to protect users’ information from security deficiencies of wireless networks.