In the late 1990s, the market growth of local area wired communication systems dramatically increased. The key drives for this rapid increase includes low cost products, interoperability between devices, and the general growth of home networking.

Some of the first Wireless LAN devices appeared in 1987. These devices had a data transmission rate of 1 Mbps. Wireless LAN networks of the early 2000s have data rates of 10-50 Mbps. The WLAN market has increased from 250,000 units shipped in 1998 to more than 30 million WLAN devices in use by 2003 .

Figure_WALN_5 shows the projected growth of the WLAN market. The number of nodes that shipped in 1998 was 250,000. This increased to 1.2 million nodes shipped in 2000 (over 119% annual growth).

Figure_WALN_5: Wireless LAN Market Growth Source: Micrologic Research

“The ABGs of Wireless LAN,” Netgear, February 2003.