Personal Area Networks (PANs)

A personal area network (PAN) is a short-range wireless network that can span from a few feet to a few hundred feet. This covers many short-range wireless standards, including Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11a/b/g hardware running in ad-hoc (direct connect; no AP) mode, and forthcoming standards. The IEEE 802.15 Working Group (www.ieee802.org/15) is the standards body overseeing development of current and future PAN (also known as Wireless PAN) standards.

Major IEEE PAN standards currently include

• IEEE 802.15.1-2002 This standard is based on Bluetooth version 1.1.

• IEEE 802.15.3 This is a draft standard for high-rate (up to 55Mbps) wireless personal area networks running in ad-hoc (direct connect) mode.

• IEEE 802.15.4-2003 This standard is designed to support simple, low-power, and low-data-rate (up to 250Kbps) devices such as sensors, interactive toys, smart badges, home automation (ZigBee; see www.zigbee.org for details), and remote controls.

Whenever you connect two or more IEEE 802.11-based clients together in ad-hoc mode, or use a Bluetooth phone, keyboard, or printer, you are using a PAN. Keep in mind that a PAN is optimized for easy connections, not for security. Don't use PAN-type wireless networking in environments in which security is a critical issue. Rather, today's and tomorrow's PAN implementations should be used where quick exchange of data via wireless frequencies is desirable. For more about Bluetooth, refer to Chapter 22, "Bluetooth Wireless Technology."