What are the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Standards?
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15-09-2020 - |
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What are the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Standards?
IEEE 802.11 standard, popularly known as WiFi, lays down the architecture and specifications of wireless LANs (WLANs). WiFi or WLAN uses high frequency radio waves for connecting the nodes.
There are several standards of IEEE 802.11 WLANs. The prominent among them are 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n and 802.11p. All the standards use carrier-sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). Also, they have support for both centralised base station based as well as ad hoc networks.
IEEE 802.11
IEEE 802.11 was the original version released in 1997. It provided 1 Mbps or 2 Mbps data rate in the 2.4 GHz band and used either frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) or direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS). It is obsolete now.
IEEE 802.11a
802.11a was published in 1999 as a modification to 802.11, with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based air interface in physical layer instead of FHSS or DSSS of 802.11. It provides a maximum data rate of 54 Mbps operating in the 5 GHz band. Besides it provides error correcting code. As 2.4 GHz band is crowded, relatively sparsely used 5 GHz imparts additional advantage to 802.11a.
Further amendments to 802.11a are 802.11ac, 802.11ad, 802.11af, 802.11ah, 802.11ai, 802.11aj etc.
IEEE 802.11b
802.11b is a direct extension of the original 802.11 standard that appeared in early 2000. It uses the same modulation technique as 802.11, i.e. DSSS and operates in the 2.4 GHz band. It has a higher data rate of 11 Mbps as compared to 2 Mbps of 802.11, due to which it was rapidly adopted in wireless LANs. However, since 2.4 GHz band is pretty crowded, 802.11b devices faces interference from other devices.
Further amendments to 802.11b are 802.11ba, 802.11bb, 802.11bc, 802.11bd and 802.11be.
IEEE 802.11g
802.11g was indorsed in 2003. It operates in the 2.4 GHz band (as in 802.11b) and provides a average throughput of 22 Mbps. It uses OFDM technique (as in 802.11a). It is fully backward compatible with 802.11b. 802.11g devices also faces interference from other devices operating in 2.4 GHz band.
IEEE 802.11n
802.11n was approved and published in 2009 that operates on both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz bands. It has variable data rate ranging from 54 Mbps to 600 Mbps. It provides a marked improvement over previous standards 802.11 by incorporating multiple-input multiple-output antennas (MIMO antennas).
IEEE 802.11p
802.11 is an amendment for including wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE) to support Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). They include network communications between vehicles moving at high speed and the environment. They have a data rate of 27 Mbps and operate in 5.9 GHz band.
