This paper analyzes the error probability performance of different modulation schemes for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based wireless local area network (WLAN) systems that follow the IEEE 802.11a standard. OFDM is used in WLANs to achieve high data rates and spectral efficiency. The performance of OFDM is evaluated for modulation schemes such as phase-shift keying, quadrature amplitude modulation, differential quadrature phase-shift keying, and offset quadrature phase-shift keying under additive white Gaussian noise. The bit error rate is compared against the signal-to-noise ratio for different modulation formats to determine the most suitable scheme for OFDM-based WLANs. OFDM has been adopted in