From a business point of view (in terms of value) how much potential does a WLAN offer. Taking into consideration security issues etc.

A WLAN offers great potential. More and more devices being made support 802.11 connectivity, i.e. PDAs, laptops, BlackBerries, etc. Some people use wireless LANs as their primary means of networking, others use it as an extension of their existing wired LANs.

In terms of security, WPA is the most secure means of encryption available on 802.11 systems. WPA incorporates AES encryption, which is a government standard.

There are many different flavors of 802.11 technology. The most stable and fastest on the market is 802.11g. It operates in the 2.4 GHz RF band and is capable of delivering bandwidth upto 54 Mbps.

The more recent "beta" flavor of 802.11 is 802.11n. I have no experience with it, perhaps someone else can post with more relevant facts and info. All I have heard is that it operates in the 2.4 GHz band, and is capable of delivering wired-based bandwidth. If this is true, I would like to see how it is implemented, what type of modulation it is using, and how wide a single RF channel is that it uses to allow wire-line speed over that channel. I have seen a Linksys 802.11n AP/Router and it is quite an eye sore.

I have been working with wireless technology for quite a few years now including Land Mobile Radio, Unlicensed and Licensed microwave links and networks, and 802.11 based systems. Wireless is our business and has been for 50+ years. So, it comes highly recommended to you.

Hope this helps.

The more recent "beta" flavor of 802.11 is 802.11n. I have no experience with it, perhaps someone else can post with more relevant facts and info

I can tell you this much, .11n is not yet a standard. What this means to the consumer is there will be little or no interoperability between manufacturer's. By this I mean, equipment from one company may not work with equipment from another. What this means to the consumer is, you're basically marrying yourself to one vendor until such time as the .11n becomes a standard. Once it becomes a standard, the equipment you own may not even be up to the standard and might at that point in time require replacing. All in all, I would recommend avoiding .11n at this time.

If you want a 100 MBps network (or faster), your best bet is still a wired solution.

The best security is also still a wired network. We've come a long way in recent years in wireless encryption, but given enough time and processing power, a good hacker could still hack into your network. Granted, it's getting a lot harder than it used to be providing people actually employ encryption on their WLAN's (so many don't it's scary). If you have really sensitive data you want to be sure nobody can get at, then I would go wired. You can always add WLAN on top and restrict it's access from the really sensitive data.

That's what we've done where I work. We run a wired network and have added the convenience of a WLAN on top for mobile users. However, access to sensitive data is restricted and WLAN access only really gets internet access. In order for an employee with a WLAN capable device to get to sensitive data they must use a VPN solution to basically go out on the web and come back in through the VPN which requires authentication.