New 802.

11ac technology what it means for

WLANs
Exercise chapter 2:
Read the following article, then summarize the 802.11ac standard by:
1. Study on how 801.11ac works
2. Find the differences between 802.11n and 802.11ac in terms of how it works
3. Find the fallback/compatibility between 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11n vs 802.11ac.
802.11ac is the latest IEEE standard for wireless LAN (WLAN) network technology, and is
expected to be ratified by end of 2013 or early in 2014.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has already begun certification programs. It is expected that certifications
and equipment will be rolled out in at least two phases, with the first phase happening now,
and another phase to realise all of the IEEE specifications enhancements coming at least a year
from now. Several access points (APs) and client radios supporting the 802.11ac draft
specification have been released in 2013 and are shipping with this first phase of
enhancements.
802.11ac is essentially about higher bit rates over a WLAN connection. It builds on many of the
techniques introduced in 802.11n to deliver higher rates. These include:
Wider channels: 802.11n introduced 40 MHz channels, which improved rates over previous 20
MHz channels. 802.11ac introduces 80 MHz channels now, and 160 MHZ channels in a next
wave. Higher modulation and coding schema (MCS). 802.11ac introduces 256 QAM, which
allows more bits to be encoded in a single symbol. This can provide up to a 33% improvement
in bit rates.
More spatial streams via more antennae: 802.11n introduced multiple input /multiple output
(MIMO) transmission systems, which uses up to four antennae for transmitting and four
antennae for receiving (44). This allows a single bit stream to be divided into four different
streams to be transmitted simultaneously, and then aggregated back to the original bit stream
at the receiving end. 802.11ac increases this to up to eight streams via eight antennae (88).
Multi-user MIMO: 802.11ac introduces the technique of an AP using multiple antennae to
transmit simultaneously to multiple clients. For example, a 44 AP can transmit simultaneously
to four 11 clients.
The first wave of this technology includes 80 MHz channels and 3 x 3 APs. Wider 160 MHz
channels, MIMO configurations greater than 3 x 3, and multi-user MIMO is expected to come in
the next wave.
Physical layer connection rates will eventually be 6,9 Gbps. But most implementations in the
first wave of deployments, using 3 x 3 MIMO, will support 1,3 Gbps.
What all of this really means is user throughput (as measured in bits per second) will increase
from what they are now in 802.11n networks. A higher user throughput will, in turn, increase
the capacity of 802.11ac APs. Because a user can download a file and upload an email
attachment at faster transmission rates, they can use less time on the shared RF media.
Therefore, more users transmitting at these higher rates can access the shared RF media of an
AP.
However, the higher rates are neither certain nor guaranteed. They depend on a number of
factors such as signal levels and signal/noise ratios (which determine which MCS can be used),
co-channel interference, MIMO and spatial streams, beam steering and RRM techniques of an
AP, and the hardware and firmware of radio adapters and the APs themselves. Higher rates also
depend on the number of users on the shared RF media, and especially on the presence and
activity of 802.11a and 802.11n clients.
802.11ac has been designed to be fully compatible with 802.11a and 11n client radios. If an
802.11ac AP operates on a wide 80MHz channel, RF media controls (e.g., beacons, RTS, CTS
messages) are transmitted on the primary 20 MHz channel in 11a format. This allows an
802.11a/n client to operate on an 802.11ac AP. However, 802.11a clients can only transmit on
20 MHz channels, and 802.11n on 20 or 40 MHz channels. Therefore, when an 11a client
transmits to an 11ac AP, the 80 MHz channel must fallback to 20 MHz. It must fallback to a 40
MHz channel to accommodate an 11n client. This means that an 11ac client must wait for the
slower transmissions of an 11a or 11n client before it can transmit, thus slowing down overall
performance.
Even with these conditional impacts on performance from legacy clients, an 802.11ac AP
network will provide overall better performance in terms of throughput and user capacity. This
improvement will only increase as the client base transitions more to 802.11ac clients from
legacy 802.11a and 11n clients.
Another key difference from 802.11n is that 802.11ac operates only in the 5 GHz band. This will
drive the population of WLAN client radios more to the 5 GHz band in order to take advantage
of the performance improvements. Nonetheless, most 802.11ac APs now shipping support
dual-band operation in both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz band, and support 802.11a/b/g/n along
with 11ac.
802.11ac requires replacement of current legacy APs. However, the rest of the LAN/WAN
infrastructure does not require replacement. The only consideration that needs to be made is
whether an increase in Ethernet capacity is required from the AP to the network aggregation
and WAN connections.
Since 802.11ac APs can provide higher overall throughput, one can expect to have more user
traffic hit the Ethernet backhaul network. If a single Gigabit Ethernet link is currently installed to
an 802.11a/n AP, then it is likely that link will be sufficient for an 802.11ac AP. Since the current
maximum physical data rate of 802.11ac is 1300 Mbps, and the user throughput will not likely
exceed 900 Mbps, a 1 Gbps link will handle this. However, consider first that in a 1-2 year
timeframe 802.11ac APs may handle more than 2,6 Gbps physical data rates and more than 1
Gbps user rates, thereby driving the need for two Gigabit Ethernet links. Consider also that the
aggregate network uplinks from multiple 802.11ac APs may require an upgrade in Ethernet
capacity, especially if that uplink is currently only 1 Gbps.