The 3G4G Blog: 802.11 family is getting quite big

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Having only studied 802.11a, b and g in past, I was surprised to find that there are many other 802.11 protocols in the family.

See which ones do you know:

802.11a - 54 Mbps standard, 5 GHz signaling (ratified 1999)
802.11b - 11 Mbps standard, 2.4 GHz signaling (1999)
802.11c - operation of bridge connections (moved to 802.1)
802.11d - worldwide compliance with regulations for use of wireless signalspectrum (2001)
802.11e - Quality of Service (QoS) support (2005)
802.11f – Inter access point protocol to support roaming clients (2003)
802.11g - 54 Mbps standard, 2.4 GHz signaling (2003)
802.11h - Enhanced version of 802.11a to support European regulatory requirements (2003)
802.11i - Security improvements for the 802.11 family (2004)
802.11j - Enhancements to 5 GHz signaling to support Japan regulatoryrequirements (2004)
802.11k - WLAN system management
802.11l - Skipped to avoid confusion with 802.11i
802.11m - Maintenance of 802.11 family documentation
802.11n - Future 100+ Mbps standard
802.11o – Voice over WLAN, faster handoff, prioritize voice traffic over data
802.11p – Using 5.9GHz band for ITS (long range)
802.11q – Support for VLAN 802.11r – Handling fast handoff when roaming between APs
802.11s – Self-healing/self-configuring mesh networks
802.11t - Wireless Performance Prediction
802.11u - Interworking with External Networks
802.11v - Wireless Network Management standard
802.11w - Protected Management Frames standard
802.11x – Summarize all 802.11 standards, but it is not a standard.
802.11y - Contention Based Protocol Study Group

For a quick introduction see the following links:

You may also be interested in this new book:

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