Efficiency of Wireless Local Area Networks in Clients Moving at High Speed

Wireless communication structures based on the IEEE 802.11 Standard became an important research area within science and economy during the last years. It forms a basis for an area-wide use of mobile services and personalized information within so called hotspots. However, the common usage is a public available stationary installation like at an airport, office building or university. Besides other wireless technologies like DECT or HiperLAN this paper shows, that Wireless LAN is capable for use in clients moving at high speed. To prove the theory a couple of measurements have been made using components of the IEEE 802.11b standard and clients moving at speeds up to 200 km/h. Beside measuring characteristic parameters like signal- and noise level as well as data throughput for different speeds, measurements on the quality of voice transmission have been made for the first time. In addition to a detailed analysis this article covers perspectives for applications using wireless hotspots.