802.11

The IEEE 802.11 Working Group has a lot on its hands these days, and this page is a sort of index for what I eventually cover on the site.

So here's a list of all the subgroups ((based on this guide):

  • 802.11a: 5-GHz spectrum, up to 54 Mbps. Completely sidelined by and .
  • : 2.4-GHz band, up to 11Mbps.
  • 802.11e: QoS finagling. Highly debatable.
  • 802.11f/IAPP: an attempt at standardizing aspects of WDS
  • : OFDM in the 2.4-GHz band, up to 54 Mbps. Proprietary extensions gave us 108 Mbps (with a strong tail wind).
  • 802.11h: power control and channel selection in the 5-GHz band for those pesky Europeans.
  • 802.11i: tougher encryption.
  • 802.11j: tweaks for the Japanese market in the 4.9- and 5-GHz bands.
  • 802.11k: Resource management. Curious to see what this will turn out to be in practice.
  • 802.11m: Technical and editorial corrections are handled here.
  • 802.11n: The real 100Mbps standard. Still in flux, as usual.
  • 802.11p: Mobility. 1 km radius at 125 mph. Likely to be lobbied to hell by WiMax.
  • 802.11r: Roaming/handoff for Real-time services, such as VoIP.
  • 802.11s: Mesh Networks, the radio planner's worst nightmare.
  • 802.11t: Metrics and test methods for deployment planning.
  • 802.11u: Internetworking (i.e., playing nice with other networks).
  • 802.11v: Management interfaces.