Free Alliance

The IEEE 802.11 standard was developed for high-speed data communications. The architecture was designed to operate at data rates of a minimum of 1Mbps. In order to communicate at these data rates over ranges of hundreds of feet requires about 100mW. Therefore, these radios are normally installed in devices that have rechargeable batteries and have an operating period of one to two eight hour shifts. Locatable tags must operate for years in order to be maintenance free and cost effective. Consequently the data rates of these tags are much slower, trading data rate for range, while still requiring only very low power transmissions from the tags.