WiFi Standards: IEEE 802.11

As WiFi has developed, many new variants or standards have been developed to accommodate the increasing speeds and performance

WiFi IEEE 802.11 Types Includes:
Standards 802.11a 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11ac 802.11ad WiGig 802.11af White-Fi 802.11ah Sub GHz Wi-Fi 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 802.11be Wi-Fi 7

802.11 topics: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 basics Standards Wi-Fi Alliance generations Security Wi-Fi Bands Router location & coverage How to buy the best Wi-Fi router

As Wi-Fi is used by for so many different purposes and Wi-Fi capabilities are incorporated into a huge number of devices made by different manufacturers, it is of great importance that it has internationally agreed standards and specifications.

By having standards that define the exact operation of the technology, it is possible to ensure that equipment made by different manufacturers will communicate satisfactorily.

It is important for any system that can be manufactured by different manufacturers, that there are common standards that can be used as it enables reliable interoperation, and this enables the technology to be more widely accepted and used.

Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11 is a prime example of how an accessible standard has enabled multiple manufacturers to make equipment for it, and together ensure that the whole Wi-Fi technology is considerably more widely used.

IEEE Wi-Fi standards authority

The Wi-Fi standards are written and maintained by the IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers which has its corporate office in New York City and its operations centre in Piscataway, New Jersey.

The IEEE develops and maintains a large number of standards associated with the electrical and electronics industries - not only do these include the Wi-Fi 802.11 series of standards, but also many others including those for Ethernet, IEEE 802.3.

In total, the IEEE has over 1100 active standards, and around 600 more under development. One of the more notable are the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN group of standards, of which IEEE 802.11 is one of the more well known.

IEEE 802.11 Standards

All the Wi-Fi standards come under the IEEE 802 umbrella for local area and metropolitan area networking, LAN / MAN. The Wi-Fi standards come under the IEEE 802.11 series.

When the first Wi-Fi standard was released in 1997, no suffix letter was added. However as further variants were released, a suffix letter was added to denote the actual variation. This letter was lower case.

The various standards under the IEEE 802.11 umbrella cover everything from the bearers to elements of the system required for interworking, e.g. security, hotspots, quality of service, roaming and the like.

The main IEEE 802.11 standards are listed below:

802.11a: This was the first Wi-FI standard in the 802.11 series. Released in 1999 it defined a wireless network bearer operating in the 5 GHz ISM band using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing with data rate up to 54 Mbps.

Although 802.11a was used, it was as widely used as the 802.11b version. Although the 5 GHz band was much wider and accommodated many more channels, the technology was more expensive at the time and this reduced its use considerably.

Read more about . . . . IEEE 802.11n.

802.11s: This IEEE 802.11 standard amendment addresses the topic of mesh networking. It details how Wi-Fi devices can interconnect to create a WLAN mesh network, which may be used for relatively fixed - non-mobile topologies and wireless ad hoc networks.

802.11u: IEEE 802.11u-2011 is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11-2007 standard. It adds features that are used for interworking with external networks. It is used for roaming and also it is used for the Hotspot2.0 initiative.

Read more about . . . . Wi-Fi Hotspot 2.0.

802.11ac: IEEE 802.11ac gave a major leap in terms of performance when it was introduced. The standard was released in 2013, but even though many companies had sight of the standard as it was released it took a short while after its release before products were seen and it became widely used. The standard defines a Wi-Fi "wireless network bearer" that operates below 6GHz and provides data rates of at least 1Gbps per second for multi-station operation and 500 Mbps on a single link. The standard has been labelled as Wi-Fi 5 by Wi-Fi Alliance in view of its features and performance.

Read more about . . . . IEEE 802.11ac.

802.11ad: 802.11ad also known as WiGi or Gigabit Wifi and it is designed to provide extremely high throughput data and uses millimetre wave bands where there are large amounts of bandwidth to achieve this. It is defined as a Multiple Gigabit Wireless System (MGWS) standard and it operates at frequencies up to 60 GHz frequency - it is a networking standard for WiGig networks.

In view of the very high frequencies used, ranges are very limited - often jsut a few metres and it is severely attenuated by objects like walls, etc that would allow signals from lower frequencies through.

Read more about . . . . 802.11ad WiGig Gigabit Wi-Fi.

802.11af: There is often a lot of what is termed White Space in the regions where television transmitters require guard regions so that transmitters using the same frequency do not interfere. In these regions where there is the white space, low power signals can be used for a variety of other services as their power level means they will not travel to far and cause interference to the primary users. One use for this white space is Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.11af has been defined to operate in these regions. In view of its application and method of frequency use, it is often called White-Fi.

Read more about . . . . 802.11af White Fi.

802.11ah: Although the 2.4 and 5GHz bands are the most widely used for Wi-Fi, there are also some ISM allocations below 1 GHz. IEEE 802.11ah seeks to use the unlicensed spectrum below 1 GHz. One advantage is that it will be able to provide long range communications and hence give support for the Internet of Everything. The drawback of these bands is that they are relatively narrow and this can limit the data speed.

Read more about . . . . 802.11ah sub-GHz Wi-Fi.

802.11ax: 802.11ax is seen as the future successor to 802.11ac. Using technologies including OFDMA, MU-MIMO and others its aim is to increase spectral efficiency and hence the overall usability.