A wireless network's footprint is its effective area of coverage, the physical territory in which one may access it. In most cases, growth in wireless network footprints is a good thing, even a bragging point. Bigger means greater access to the network. Metaphorically speaking, you want the network's footprint to be worthy of a tyrannosaur -- absolutely huge and providing great coverage and a high degree of availability.

On the other hand, that huge footprint carries a risk of malevolent intrusion that increases with its size. A network footprint is more or less a product of the access point deployment. And the primary entry in a WLAN for an intruder is, of course, the access point (AP).

By Scott Robinson at ZDNet.

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