Anavon Communications - Wireless Network Standards

Wireless LAN Standards

WLAN standards were started with the 802.11 standard, developed in 1997 by the IEEE. This base standard allowed data transmission of up to 2 Mbps. Over time, this standard has been enhanced. These extensions are recognized by the addition of a letter to the original 802.11 standard, including 802.11a and 802.11b. The chart below details the various standards related to 802.11.

802.11	The original WLAN Standard. Supports 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps.
802.11a	High speed WLAN standard for 5 Ghz band. Supports 54 Mbps.
802.11b	WLAN standard for 2.4 Ghz band. Supports 11 Mbps.
802.11e	Address quality of service requirements for all IEEE WLAN radio interfaces.
802.11f	Defines inter-access point communications to facilitate multiple vendor-distributed WLAN networks.
802.11g	Establishes an additional modulation technique for 2.4 Ghz band. Intended to provide speeds up to 54 Mbps.
802.11h	Defines the spectrum management of the 5 Ghz band for use in Europe and in Asia Pacific.
802.11i	Address the current security weaknesses for both authentication and encryption protocols. The standard encompasses 802.1X, TKIP, and AES protocols.

The 802.11b specification was ratified by the IEEE in July 1999 and operates at radio frequencies in the 2.4 to 2.497 GHz bandwidth of the radio spectrum. The modulation method selected for 802.11b is known as complementary direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) using complementary code keying (CCK) making data speeds as high as 11 Mbps. The 802.11a specification was also ratified in July 1999, but products did not become available until 2001 so it isn't as widely deployed as 802.11b. 802.11a operates at radio frequencies between 5.15 and 5.875 GHz and a modulation scheme known as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) makes data speeds as high as 54 Mbps possible.