The IEEE helps to standardize wireless protocols. Those that you must be familiar with for the CCNA Wireless Exam are the 802.11 a/b/g and n protocols. These four IEEE standards define the wireless family that is used in almost all wireless LANS today. The standardization of wireless networking started with the original 802.11 protocol in 1997, and each protocol thereafter has simply added to the benefit of wireless technologies. This chapter looks at the 802.11 protocol families, their history, and how they operate. The 802.11 protocols encompass the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz range.
The Original 802.11 Protocol
The original 802.11 protocol was where wireless LANs find there beginnings. It is rare to find this original protocol in new hardware today, probably because it only operates at 1 and 2 Mbps. The 802.11 standard describes frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS), which operates only at 1 and 2 Mbps. The standard also describes direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS), which operates only at 1 and 2 Mbps. If a client operates at any other data rate, it is considered non-802.11 compliant, even if it can use the 1- and 2-Mbps rates.
The original 802.11 protocol falls within the industry, scientific, and medical (ISM) bands and operates only in the 2.4-GHz range. The 2.4-GHz range has up to 14 channels depending on the country you are in. In the United States, the FCC allows channels 1 through 11 to be used. This gives you 3 nonoverlapping channels: 1, 6, and 11. This is important because you do not want to have APs and clients operating on the same channel placed near each other for interference reasons.
The 802.11b Protocol
802.11b is a supplement to the 802.11 protocol. To get an better feel for how the 802.11 protocols progressed, understand that technology moves faster than the standards do. 802.11 was quickly outgrown because wired networks offered 10 Mbps versus the 1 and 2 Mbps of 802.11. Vendors developed methods of achieving higher data rates. The danger in vendor-designed protocols, of course, is interoperability. The job of the IEEE was simply to define a standard that all vendors could follow based on the proprietary implementations that they were using.
802.11b offers higher data rates—up to 11 Mbps—with backward compatibility at 1 and 2 Mbps. At 1 and 2 Mbps, the same coding and modulation as 802.11 is used. When operating at the new speeds—5.5 Mbps and 11 Mbps—a different modulation and coding is used. 802.11 uses Barker 11 coding, as covered in Chapter 1, “Introduction to Wireless Networking Concepts,” and 802.11b uses complementary code keying (CCK) for coding. For modulation, 802.11 uses differential binary phase-shift keying (DBPSK), whereas 802.11b uses differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK). The result is more data sent in the same period.
802.11b was ratified in September 1999. The United States has 11 channels, the same as 802.11. In Europe, the ETSI defines 13 channels, and Japan has 14. 802.11b allows dynamic rate shifting (DRS) to enable clients to shift rates to lower rates as they travel farther away from an AP and higher rates as they get closer to an AP. Today, 802.11b is the most popular and most widely deployed wireless standard. Table 6-3 gives some basic information on the 802.11b standard.
The 802.11g Protocol
The IEEE ratified 802.11g in June 2003. In addition to the four data rates of 802.11b, it added eight more. The maximum data rate of 54 Mbps places 802.11g in the same speed range as 802.11a; however, it remains in the 2.4-Ghz frequency range. On the lower end, 802.11g is still compatible with 802.11b, using the same modulation and coding as 802.11b for the 1-, 2-, 5.5-, and 11-Mbps rates. To achieve the higher data rates, 802.11g uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for modulation. OFDM is the same modulation that 802.11a uses.
There are still only three nonoverlapping channels. With OFDM, you must be careful about power outputs; the power needs to be reduced to handle the peaks in the modulation technique and still fall within governmental regulations. Table 6-4 shows some details about 802.11g.
The 802.11a Protocol
802.11a was ratified in 1999 and operates in the 5-GHz frequency range. This makes it incompatible with 802.11, 802.11b, and 802.11g, while avoiding interference from these devices in addition to microwaves, Bluetooth devices, and cordless phones. 802.11a had late-market adoption, so it is not as widely deployed as the 802.11b and g protocols.
Another difference is that 802.11a supports anywhere from 12 to 23 nonoverlapping channels as opposed to the 3 nonoverlapping channels in 802.11b/g. Because OFDM is used, subchannels can overlap. 802.11a requires that the data rates of 6, 12, and 24 Mbps be supported but allows for data rates up to 54 Mbps.
Table 6-5 shows some details on the 802.11a standard.
The rules under ETSI specifications are a little different. ETSI allows 19 channels and requires that dynamic frequency control (DFC) and transmit power control (TPC) be used.
What makes 802.11a unique is the way the 5-GHz frequency band is divided into multiple parts. These parts, the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (UNII), were designed for different uses. UNII-1 was designed for indoor use with a permanent antenna. UNII-2 was designed for indoor or outdoor use with an external antenna, and UNII-3 was designed for outdoor bridges and external antennas.
The FCC revised the use of the frequency in 2004 by adding channels and requiring compliance of DFC and TPC to avoid radar. The revision also allows all three parts of the UNII to be used indoors. This is not the case with ETSI, however, because it does not allow unlicensed use of UNII-3.
In the 802.11a spectrum, the higher-band channels are 30 MHz apart. This includes UNII- 2 and above. The lower bands are 20 MHz apart.
The 802.11n Protocol
802.11n is currently a draft standard. Again, technology has progressed more rapidly than the standards, because vendors are already shipping 802.11n APs and clients. What makes 802.11n special is that in a pure 802.11n environment, you can get speeds up to 300 Mbps, but most documentation says it will provide 100 Mbps. This is probably because the expectation is that other 802.11 clients will be present. 802.11n is, in fact, backward compatible with 802.11b/g and a.
The backward compatibility and speed capability of 802.11n come from its use of multiple antennas and a technology called Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO). MIMO, pronounced Mee-Moh, uses different antennas to send and receive, thus increasing throughput and accomplishing more of a full duplex operation.
MIMO comes in three types:
- Precoding
- Spatial multiplexing
- Diversity coding
Spatial multiplexing takes a signal, splits it into several lower rate streams, and then sends each one out of different antennas. Each one of the lower rate streams are sent on the same frequency. The number of streams is limited to the lowest number of antennas on either the transmitter or the receiver. If an AP has four antennas and a client has two, you are limited to two.
Currently, the Wi-Fi Alliance is certifying 802.11n devices even though they are still in draft status. The Wi-FI Alliance is doing this using the interim IEEE 802.11n draft 2.0.
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