Radio LAN

Radio Local Area Networks (RLANs) are intended to cover smaller geographic areas like homes, offices and to a certain extent buildings being adjacent to each other. Radio LANs are also known as Wireless LANs (WLANs) or as Wi-Fi™, where Wi-Fi™ is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance.

A popular deployment of Radio LANs is providing broadband connectivity at public locations like airports, railway stations, conference centres and hotels. Even on trains and aboard aircraft Radio LANs are or will become available for providing network access.

Currently, the frequency bands 2,4 GHz and 5 GHz are mainly used by Radio LANs and mostly, the deployed technology is based on the IEEE 802.11 standards family.

The continuously increasing demand for faster transmission rates and the continued substitution of wired connections by wireless ones make it necessary to identify other frequency bands that offer sufficient capacities, e.g. the frequency band 60 GHz.

Harmonized Standards for RLAN

ETSI technical ommittee Broadband Radio Access Networks (BRAN) work on the Harmonized Standard for 5 GHz high performance RLAN equipment that is intended to operate in the frequency ranges 5 150 MHz to 5 350 MHz and 5 470 MHz to 5 725 MHz. Furthermore, work related to Multiple-Gigabit Wireless LAN Systems using the 60 GHz band is being done.

ETSI technical committee EMC & Radio Spectrum Matters (ERM) is responsible for a European Standard covering 'Wideband Data Links operating in the 2,4 GHz band', i.e. Radio LANs or Wireless LANs. This Standard is widely used for demonstrating the conformity of Wi-Fi™, and similar licence-exempt data communications equipment, with the Radio Equipment & Telecommunications Terminal Equipment (R&TTE) Directive from the European Commission.

The following is a list of recently published and frequently downloaded standards. Please use the ETSI Work Programme to find further related standards.