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Wifi overview

Standards Organizations#

  • Many manufacturer create devices
  • Standards must be created and adhered to in order to assure seamless operability

IEEE#

  • Name: Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
  • Who: The professional society who creates and maintains standards for diff technologies including network, that we use
  • Purpose: Creates & sets standards for betterment of humanity
  • Special Mention: 802.11 group was responisble for creating the Wireless LAN (WLAN) standard

IETF#

  • Name: Internet Engineering Task Force
  • Who: International community of people in networking industry
  • Purpose: produce technical docs about design, use, & management of internet

Wi-Fi Alliance#

Wi-Fi Alliance Certified Logo

  • Name: Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) - 1999, later Wi-Fi Alliance
  • Purpose: Compliance enforcement body by ensuring interoperability of WLAN products via certification testing
  • Who: In 1999, Aironet (aquired by Cisco), Nokia, Symbol Technologies (now Motorola), and 3 others formed WECA

Standards#

802.11#

  • Creator: IEEE
  • Maintainer: IEEE
  • What: Standard for WLAN communication (LAN communication using radio frequency [RF])
  • Why: To set one single way to achieve it - as there are many ways
  • Who: 400 active members, 200 wireless companies - can make suggestions
    • 802.11
  • How
    • 1997
    • included only transmission types FHSS & DSSS
    • 2.4 GHz band
    • Speed: 1-2 Mbps

802.11a#

  • How
    • 1999 (same year as .11b)
    • 5 GHz
    • 54 Mbps (but much less range than 11b)
    • High cost & shorter distance

802.11b#

  • How
    • 1999 (same year as .11a)
    • 2.4 GHz
    • 11 Mbps (but much more range than 11a)
    • did better in market w.r.t 11a

802.11g#

  • How
    • 2003
    • 2.4 GHz
    • 54 Mbps
    • Compatible with 802.11b

802.11n#

  • How
    • 2009
    • 2.4 & 5 GHz
    • Introduced MIMO - Multiple input, multiple output
      • channel aggregation
      • multiple antennas
    • 600 Mbps (theoritical)
    • Compatible with 802.11b

802.11ac#

  • How
    • 2014
    • 5 GHz
    • Enhanced MIMO - Multiple input, multiple output
      • extended channel bandwidth (11n's 40 MHz) to 80 MHz
      • increased MIMO functionality & capability
    • 7 Gbps (theoritical)
    • Utilizes Beanforming as core part of the Special
    • Detects devices and intensify signal in their direction
    • This compensates for shorter range limitations of 5 GHz band

802.3#

  • Creator: IEEE
  • Maintainer: IEEE
  • What: Standard for LAN communication (LAN communication using wired network / ethernet cable)

Regulatory Bodies#

  • Why: WiFi is based on radio frequency. There are multiple frequencies available under RF spectrum. Using frequencies at will would eventually disable all communication.
  • Purpose: To keep the RF spectrum organized and open for fair use

ITU-R#

  • International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication sector
  • Regions covered:
    1. Europe, Africa, Northern Asia
    2. North & South America
    3. Southern Asia
  • Make sure RF signal from one country do not interefer with signals of another country

FCC#

  • Federal Communications Commission
  • Regulates
    • RF frequencies
    • channels
    • transmission power
  • In: United States and several countries in the America
  • www.fcc.gov

ETSI#

  • European Telecommunication Standards Institute
  • European counterpart to the FCC