WLANs

Mr.Narayana Swamy.R
Assoc.Prof,Dept of ECE
T.John Institute of Technology,
Bangalore

Introduction to wireless LAN

802.11X technologies
Wireless standards were written to provide a
wireless extension to the existing wired standards.
WLANs would be developed with the following goals:

Seamless roaming
Message forwarding
The greatest range of operation
Support for large number of users

The IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics

Engineers) creates and finalizes standards for
computer networks, amongst other technologies. The
IEEE 802.11x specification defines how wireless
networks communicate. As a comparison, most wired
networks based on Ethernet and CSMA/CD (defined
later) technology conform to the 802.3 standard.

Introduction to wireless LAN

802.11X technologies

802.11

Efforts have led to enhancements and extensions to the original spec that have raised the maximum data rates, added new
frequencies of operation and attempted to deal with other issues like

In 1997 the IEEE published the original 802.11 1997 Std. In the industry it is often referred to as 802.11 prime as it was the initial
wireless standard. It was revised in 1999 and reaffirmed in 2003 as 802.11 1999 (R2003). By this final reaffirmation most of the following
subsets of the standard have their own section devoted to the idiosyncrasies of each. The original standard allowed for data rates at 1 or 2
Mbps. It contained three clauses defining physical layers. In Clause 16 it defined an Infrared (IR) physical layer which in the 802.11 form is
obsolete. Clause 14 defined a Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) physical layer; this technology has its roots as far back as WWII
with the first known patent of its type. Clause 15 devices are defined as Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) and are the root of the
subsequent amendments of 802.11a/b/g radio devices. The Clause 16 or infrared devices are not considered a Radio Frequency
technology, and due to their obsolete nature, will not be considered in this document. All of the clause 14 and 15 devices or FHSS and
DSSS devices operate in the 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) Band as defined by Industry Canada. In Canada the IEEE
restricts the operation of these devices to the Spectrum between 2.40 GHz and 2.4835 GHz. Clause 14 or FHSS devices are further
restricted to 1 MHz wide carriers in the space between 2.402 GHz and 2.480 GHz, allowing a range of 78 individual carriers that can be
organized into a pattern for the connected transmitter and receiver to follow in order to communicate. These FHSS radio devices cannot
communicate with the DSSS radio devices. As manufacturers decided where to spend their research and development capital the DSSS
radio devices and their apparent capabilities caused many of the major vendors to focus on the future and development of the DSSS or
Clause 15 devices. The amendments of 802.11b and g were evidence of this as they both are backward compatible with the Clause 15
DSSS 802.11 prime devices but cannot communicate with the 802.11 Clause 14 FHSS devices.

Interference from other services

Security concerns
QOS
Interoperability between different vendor Access points

What Is Wi-Fi?

Wi-Fi stands for Wireless Fidelity. Computers can be equipped with Wi-Fi adapters (which are available as internally-mounted cards, cards
that fit in lap-top PCMCIA slots, or external devices attached via USB ports). Wi-Fi adapters are fairly inexpensive. The adapters seek out
signals broadcast by devices called Access Points (APs) that in turn are typically connected to the existing wired network. This gives Wi-Fi
devices access to the same resources that devices connected to the wired network have. Although it is less common, Wi-Fi devices can
also communicate directly (one-to-one) with each other. Wi-Fi devices employ several different technical standards grouped together and
referred to as the IEEE 802.11 specification in order to communicate with an AP.

Evolution of WLANs

Moores law
Increased reduction in price and size and increased chip functionality and
speed.

ALOHA Net
1971, 7 campuses spread over 4 islands to communicate (network to radio)
Star topology

Ham radio
1980s

1990s
WaveLAN products 920MHz range
New Wave LAN product launched in 1994 for 2.4Ghz Range

1991
Victory hayes submitted PAR to initiate 802.11 working group
1997 initial standard was finalized

Extension to 802.11
Original 802.11 max transfer rate
2Mbps (wired LANs -10 to 100Mbps),
slow acceptance
In 1999 - 802.11 updated
802.11 b , 11 Mbps in 2.4 Ghz band (DSSS)
802.11 a, 54Mbps in newer 5Ghz band
(OFDM)
802.11 d, allow to operate in other countries
802.11 b/g, data rate extension to 54Mbps

Introduction to 802.15X
technologies in PAN Application
WPAN Max Distance 10m
POS Personal Operating Space
MAC and PHY spec 802.15.1 defined
on Apr15 2002
Compatible with WLAN 802.11
WPAN is adapted from Bluetooth
standard (spec 1.1, 1.2)
Mores law-traditional MOS to on chip
MEMS

WPAN applications and

Architecture
Low cost battery operated devices
PDAs, MP3 Players, Digital Cameras
and Multi media enhanced mobiles in
conjunction
with
Laptops/tablets/notebooks
have
driven personal device product
space.
Share data
Eliminate wires

WPAN Characteristics
WLAN supports Client like devices
notebook/laptop/tablet PCs
WPAN supports Mobile Personnel
Devices
WPAN Power levels and coverage Areas
WLAN 100mW 100Meters- Power supplied by APs
WPAN 1mW- 10Meters- Battery operated

Media control techniques

Adhoc- master/slave-poll TDM
MIBs

Network life span or duration

Bluetooth WPAN
Bluetooth specification provides for communication over a
relatively short range radio link that has been optimized for
battery operated, compact, personal devices.
Uses 2.4Ghz unlicensed ISM Band
Fast frequency hopping scheme is employed to prevent
interference and signal fading.
Baseband data is preshaped with a Gaussian filter and then
modulated by using BFSK at a symbol rate of 1msps.
The use of frequency hopping at a rate of 1600hops/s or
625us/hop and BFSK transceiver implemented on SOC.
A slotted channel format is used with a slot (hop) duration of
625us.this allows for full duplex operation using fast Time
Division Duplex Scheme.
Over the radio link information is transferred in packets at
different frequencies.
Packets is only one slot length and may be extended up to 3
or 5 slots.
Asymmetric data rate is 723.2kbps and synchronous 64kbps
for voice.

Bluetooth technology and the

OSI Model

Bluetooth WPAN adhoc

network topologies

Components of Bluetooth
Architecture

Introduction to WMAN/IEEE
802.16x Technologies

Started in 1999 to promote cost effective

and innovative
broadband wireless products for transport of data, video, voice
services at frequencies in range of licensed 10 to 66 GHz where
LOS is required for satisfactory operation.
Provides details of the physical and MAC layers for fixed point-tomultipoint broadband wireless access(BWA) systems.
MAC sublayer is structured
to provide support for multiple
physical layer implementations over a broad range of frequencies
in the microwave and millimeter wave regions.
Local multipoint distribution services(LMDS) Late 1990s at 1040Ghz.
Original standard has been amended to include operation in the 2
to 11GHz frequency range in both licensed and unlicensed bands.
In US this includes 2.4GHz and 5GHz U-NII bands where NON LOS
operation is possible. Other part of world -3.5GHz band.
Additional spectrum in late 2003-71-76GHz, 81-86GHz,92-95GHz
bands for broadband millimeter wave and broadband internet.
WiMax describes this technology space

IEEE 802.16 and 802.16a

standards
IEEE 802.16-2001 adopted and as ANSI standard during 2002.
Covered physical layer implementations for 10-66GHz frequency
range,
MAC layer only supports LOS operation over fairly large channels
(25 to 28MHz wide) that can support raw data rates in excess of
120Mbps.
Initial application SOHO to large office complexes- provide
broadband internet access.
Revision to original standards

802.16.1 incorporated into 802.16

802.16.3 became 802.16a
802.16.1b focus on the 5-6GHz range but also covers 2-11GHz
frequencies.
802.16.1b was changed to 802.16b to support operation with other
unlicensed applications (802.11 and 802.15)
802.16a-2003 add support for operation in license exempt bands and an
optional mesh topology (for NLOS propagation) at these lower
frequencies.
802.16e supports for subscriber stations moving at vehicular speeds.

 IEEE 802.16.2-2004 : Revision of IEEE 802.16.22001 (Limited to 10-66GHz) and provides

guidelines for the coexistence of fixed broadband
wireless access systems. It addresses two issues:
coexistence between multipoint systems and
point to point systems in the 10-66Ghz frequency
range and between fixed licensed systems in the
2-11 GHz bands.
IEEE 802.16/Conformance Standards:
Conformance of both base and subscriber stations to the
specifications of the physical layer for the Wireless MANSC (single carrier) air interface.