Wireless networks (WLANs) provide freedom from wired LANs, but they provide lesser data transmission speeds, and increased risk to data-security -as compared to a LAN.

A WLAN is more like a hub on an Ethernet LAN -where everyone hears everyone else at all the time.

When it comes to "talking", however, one has to compete with everyone else on that WLAN, and it becomes quite evident that everyone is competing for the shared bandwidth. In other words, a typical WLAN operates in a half-duplex mode, and is usually slower than a typical LAN -especially when the data needs to travel over significant distances.

So, even though an IEEE 802.11x wireless LAN (WLAN) is quite similar to a wired LAN in many ways, it does not exactly work like a wired (an Ethernet) LAN. One of the major difference being the manner in which packets collisions are handled. WLAN makes use of CSMA/CA access method, where CA stands for Collision Avoidance and not Collision Detection. As a result, there is no guarantee that clients connected over a WLAN will be able to actually hear other clients on that WLAN.

Moreover, considering that data transmission over the air using radio signals (WLAN traffic) is significantly more susceptible to data corruption (bit errors) than the data transmitted over wired LAN, frequently data packets have to be retransmitted (often several times) over WLANs. In general, most WLANs are considerably slower than LANs (especially those equipped with layer-2 switches/bridges) considering they (WLANs) involve use of shared media at slower speeds, while operating in half duplex mode.