Experimental sensitivity analysis of wireless protocols in an office environment

This paper provides a methodical experimental evaluation of the 802.11a and 802.11b protocols, presenting an unbiased and independent performance review in a given office environment. Specifically, the bandwidths of the two protocols are compared as a function of distance between the wireless laptops and their access point (AP). In addition, the effects on bandwidth in the presence of interference from competing Bluetooth devices at various distances are also measured. Finally, the performance effects of using two different levels of security (i.e., 64 and 128 bit encryption schemes) are reported.