ARLAN is a family of both proprietary non-802.11 and 802.11-compliant wireless networking technologies developed and marketed by Aironet Wireless Communications

Aironet Wireless Communications

Aironet is a maker of wireless networking equipment currently operated as a division of Cisco Systems. It was started by ex-Marconi Wireless employees in 1986 as Telesystems SLW in Canada, right after the United States Federal Communications Commission opened up the ISM bands for spread spectrum...

 in the 1990s prior to Aironet's acquisition by Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...

. Operating in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz ISM band

ISM band

The industrial, scientific and medical radio bands are radio bands reserved internationally for the use of radio frequency energy for industrial, scientific and medical purposes other than communications....

s and offering a nominal 2.0 Mbit/s throughput, the non-802.11 DSSS products competed directly with NCR

NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...

's WaveLAN

WaveLAN

WaveLAN is a brand that describes two completely different families of wireless network solutions:* Pre-IEEE 802.11 WaveLAN, also called Classic WaveLAN* IEEE 802.11-compliant WaveLAN, also known as WaveLAN IEEE or ORiNOCO-History:...

 technology. After acquisition, the ARLAN lineup was renamed to Cisco Aironet; the non-802.11 products were supported briefly then discontinued.

900 MHz

33 centimeters

The 33-centimeter or 900 MHz band is a portion of the UHF radio spectrum internationally allocated to amateur radio on a secondary basis. It ranges from 902 to 928 MHz and is unique to ITU Region 2. It is primarily used for very local communications as opposed to bands lower in frequency...

 DSSS non-802.11

• Half-length ISA
  Industry Standard Architecture
  Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
  
   card, part number 655-900, RP-TNC
  Threaded Neill-Concelman connector
  The TNC connector is a threaded version of the BNC connector. The connector has a 50 Ω impedance and operates best in the 0–11 GHz frequency spectrum. It has better performance than the BNC connector at microwave frequencies...
  
   connector. Cisco part number 200-001292.
• MCA
  Micro Channel architecture
  Micro Channel Architecture was a proprietary 16- or 32-bit parallel computer bus introduced by IBM in 1987 which was used on PS/2 and other computers through the mid 1990s.- Background :...
  
   card, part number 670-900, RP-TNC connector
• PC card
  PC card
  In computing, PC Card is the form factor of a peripheral interface designed for laptop computers. The PC Card standard was defined and developed by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association which itself was created by a number of computer industry companies in the United States...
  
  , part number 690-900, large external antenna dongle
• 900 MHz access point
  Wireless access point
  In computer networking, a wireless access point is a device that allows wireless devices to connect to a wired network using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or related standards...
  
  , part number 630-900
• 900 MHz bridge, part number 640-900

2.4 GHz DSSS non-802.11

• Half-length ISA card, part number 655-2400 (later renamed to IC 2200), RP-TNC connector
• MCA card, part number 670-2400, RP-TNC connector
• PC card, part number 690-2400 (later renamed to PC 2200), large external antenna dongle
• 2.4 GHz access point, part number 630-2400
• 2.4 GHz bridge, part number 640-2400
• 2.4 GHz high-speed bridge, part number BR2040-EE

2.4 GHz FHSS

Frequency-hopping spread spectrum

Frequency-hopping spread spectrum is a method of transmitting radio signals by rapidly switching a carrier among many frequency channels, using a pseudorandom sequence known to both transmitter and receiver...

 early 802.11 draft D5 compliant

• 2.4 GHz PC card, part number PC3000
• 2.4 GHz PC card, part number LM3000
• 2.4 GHz access point, part number AP3000

Official specifications

Realm	Type	Frequency	Channels	Modulation technique	Output power	Media Access Control Media Access Control The media access control data communication protocol sub-layer, also known as the medium access control, is a sublayer of the data link layer specified in the seven-layer OSI model , and in the four-layer TCP/IP model...	Security	Max data rate	Fallback rate
US and Canada	900 MHz	902-928 MHz	12	DSSS/DQPSK	450 mW	Modified CSMA/CA	24-bit network ID	860 kbit/s	215 kbit/s
Australia	900 MHz	915-928 MHz	5	DSSS/DQPSK	450 mW	Modified CSMA/CA	24-bit network ID	215 kbit/s	172 kbit/s
US, Canada, Europe	2.4 GHz	2.400-2.4835 GHz	5	DSSS/DQPSK	50 or 100 mW	Modified CSMA/CA	24-bit network ID	2 Mbit/s	1 Mbit/s
Japan	2.4 GHz	2.471-2.497 GHz	1	DSSS/DQPSK	50 or 100 mW	Modified CSMA/CA	24-bit network ID	2 Mbit/s	1 Mbit/s
US - BR2040-EE only	2.4 GHz	2.400-2.4835 GHz	5	DSSS/DQPSK	100 mW (4 W EIRP max)	Modified CSMA/CA	24-bit network ID	8 Mbit/s (2 pairs of non-interfering bridge frequency pairs)	1 Mbit/s

External links

• Cisco End-Of-Life announcement about pre-acquisition Aironet devices
• Wayback machine archive of documentation on an ARLAN backbone built in Latvia
• Linux drivers for Aironet ARLAN
• Wayback machine archive of the Aironet products webpage