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This paper traces the origins and applications of HIPERLAN, a systems for high speed shon range radio networks for computers. HIPERLAN, HIgh Performance European Radio LAN, is the name given by the European Telecommunications Institute (ETSI) to the standard it is developing on the subject, The paper also looks at the projected applications of HIPE,RLAN and closes with a summary of the main operational characteristics and architecture of HIPWAN.Note: this paper reflects the views of the author who has participated in the HPERLAN work from its inception. SOME HISTORYRadio networks for computers recently have acquired a lot of attention from experts and a lot of coverage in the trade press. Although portable radio data communications are nothing new -they have been used for many years by utilities, the military, plant operators, the police, etc, none of these applications involved more than messaging between computer based applications. In the telecommunications view of things that was all that was needed anyway.In the meantime, computing was taken over by the desktop PC and the computer manufacturers developed what was needed to hook them together in large numbers: the Local Area Network. The Local Area Networks of today find their genesis in the early 80s in the pioneering work Xerox, a company known for its computers, not for telecommunications. At the same time the telecommunications world was changing as rapidly as the portable telephone took the limelight and became one of the status symbols of the late 80's.It did not rake long for people to realize that the marriage of mobile phone technology and local area networks would bring to the computer user the same freedom that the portable phone users has: connectivity anywhere and at any time.Given the spread of personal computers and the rapid rise in the sales of portable computers, many realized that this was a major new opportunity.In the US, FCC regulations for the ISM bands (915 MHZ, 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz) allow license free operation of low power spread spectrum radio systems and a number of manufacturers designed systems that exploit these rules. Some of these systems provided true LAN level performance. NCR's WaveLAN was the first to achieve a bit rate of 2 Mb/s using these rules. In 1990, the EEE -the people who gave you Ethernet -started work on a standard for wireless local area networks in newly formed committee: P802.11. In Europe the tekcommunications regulators and the national Administrations did not like the prospect of a repeat of the Ethernet experience in which American technology set the defacto world standard. The result was joint action between the European Radio Commission (ERC, responsible for spectrum allocations) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI, which makes telecommunications systems standards for all 32 countries that are members of the ERC), for making spectrum available and defining the operating parameters for radio LAN systems. The outcome is rather positive when compared to the confusion that reigns in...

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