11.3.

1 Frequency-Division Multiple Access

Frequency-division multiple access is the oldest of all multiple access schemes, and was used in
the first demand assignment system for satellites and the first-generation of cellular mobile
systems. In FDMA, the available channel bandwidth is divided into many non-overlapping
frequency bands, FDMA works on the principle of dividing the total bandwidth of the
communication channel into a number of discrete segments, where each band is dynamically
assigned to a specific user to transmit data. In an FDMA system, signals, while occupying their
assigned frequency bands, Guard bands are used between each segment of the frequency band to
prevent interference between users. In FDMA, there is a central controller that allocates the
frequency band to users, solely based on their needs. This is usually done during the call set up.
Once a band is allocated to a user, it then belongs to the user exclusively for the continuous flow
of information during the call. To prevent interference, the allocated bands are separated from
one another by small guard bands. In other words, FDMA allows the users to transmit
simultaneously, but over disjoint frequency bands, a user exploits a fixed portion of the band all
the time. FDMA is best suited for connection-oriented applications; it is, however, inefficient in
terms of utilization of power and bandwidth. If an FDMA channel is not in use by the user, it sits
idle and cannot be used by other users, which leads wastage of bandwidth, firstly caused by the
guard bands and secondly due to the fact that users can only use their own allocated frequency
bands. Therefore if a user does not have any information to transmit its allocated band lies idle,
even though other users may have a considerable amount of information to send and are
experiencing delays on their channel. FDMA is therefore best for use in systems where all users
have a stream of data to send. then. It has poor spectral efficiency, since guard bands must be
employed to avoid overlapping of the adjacent channels, and this in turn reduces the channel
capacity.

FDMA is used by analog systems, such as AMPS, NMT, or Radiocom 2000. The advantages of
FDMA are the following:

• The advantage of the FDMA system is its simplicity, since once the channel capacity is divided
amongst users each can operate independently of each other.

•FDMA it is technically simple to implement.

•A capacity increase can be obtained by reducing the information bit rate and using efficient
digital codes.
•Since FDMA is a continuous transmission scheme, fewer bits are needed for overhead purposes
as compared to TDMA.

The disadvantages of FDMA include the following:

•FDMA systems have higher cell site system costs compared to TDMA systems because of the
need to use costly bandpass filters to eliminate spurious radiation at the base station.
•

Frequency division multiple access (FDMA): Different transmitters transmit over different
frequency channels, thus avoiding possible collisions. In first-generation cellular systems,
FDMA is used to separate different users. In 4G cellular systems, the separation in the frequency
domain is achieved by discrete Fourier transform and is called orthogonal frequency division
multiple access (OFDMA).

TDMA

TDMA is a digital technique that divides a single channel or band into time slots. Each time slot
is used to transmit one byte or another digital segment of each signal in sequential serial data
format. This technique works well with slow voice data signals, but it’s also useful for
compressed video and other high-speed data.

IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Standards

IEEE 802.11 standard, popularly known as WiFi, lays down the architecture and specifications
of wireless LANs (WLANs). WiFi or WLAN uses high frequency radio waves for connecting
the nodes.

There are several standards of IEEE 802.11 WLANs. The prominent among them are 802.11,
802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n and 802.11p. All the standards use carrier-sense multiple
access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). Also, they have support for both centralised base
station based as well as ad hoc networks.

IEEE 802.11

IEEE 802.11 was the original version released in 1997. It provided 1 Mbps or 2 Mbps data rate
in the 2.4 GHz band and used either frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) or direct-
sequence spread spectrum (DSSS). It is obsolete now.
IEEE 802.11a

802.11a was published in 1999 as a modification to 802.11, with orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM) based air interface in physical layer instead of FHSS or DSSS of 802.11.
It provides a maximum data rate of 54 Mbps operating in the 5 GHz band. Besides it provides
error correcting code. As 2.4 GHz band is crowded, relatively sparsely used 5 GHz imparts
additional advantage to 802.11a.

Further amendments to 802.11a are 802.11ac, 802.11ad, 802.11af, 802.11ah, 802.11ai, 802.11aj
etc.

IEEE 802.11b

802.11b is a direct extension of the original 802.11 standard that appeared in early 2000. It uses
the same modulation technique as 802.11, i.e. DSSS and operates in the 2.4 GHz band. It has a
higher data rate of 11 Mbps as compared to 2 Mbps of 802.11, due to which it was rapidly
adopted in wireless LANs. However, since 2.4 GHz band is pretty crowded, 802.11b devices
faces interference from other devices.

Further amendments to 802.11b are 802.11ba, 802.11bb, 802.11bc, 802.11bd and 802.11be.

IEEE 802.11g

802.11g was indorsed in 2003. It operates in the 2.4 GHz band (as in 802.11b) and provides a
average throughput of 22 Mbps. It uses OFDM technique (as in 802.11a). It is fully backward
compatible with 802.11b. 802.11g devices also faces interference from other devices operating in
2.4 GHz band.

IEEE 802.11n

802.11n was approved and published in 2009 that operates on both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz
bands. It has variable data rate ranging from 54 Mbps to 600 Mbps. It provides a marked
improvement over previous standards 802.11 by incorporating multiple-input multiple-output
antennas (MIMO antennas).

IEEE 802.11p

802.11 is an amendment for including wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE) to

support Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). They include network communications
between vehicles moving at high speed and the environment. They have a data rate of 27 Mbps
and operate in 5.9 GHz band.

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is the most widely used Wi-Fi security protocol in the world.
This is a function of age, backwards compatibility, and the fact that it appears first in the
protocol selection menus in many router control panels.

WEP was ratified as a Wi-Fi security standard in September of 1999. The first versions of WEP
weren’t particularly strong, even for the time they were released, because U.S. restrictions on the
export of various cryptographic technology led to manufacturers restricting their devices to only
64-bit encryption. When the restrictions were lifted, it was increased to 128-bit. Despite the
introduction of 256-bit WEP, 128-bit remains one of the most common implementations.

Despite revisions to the protocol and an increased key size, over time numerous security flaws
were discovered in the WEP standard. As computing power increased, it became easier and
easier to exploit those flaws. As early as 2001, proof-of-concept exploits were floating around,
and by 2005, the FBI gave a public demonstration (in an effort to increase awareness of WEP’s
weaknesses) where they cracked WEP passwords in minutes using freely available software.

Despite various improvements, work-arounds, and other attempts to shore up the WEP system, it
remains highly vulnerable. Systems that rely on WEP should be upgraded or, if security upgrades
are not an option, replaced. The Wi-Fi Alliance officially retired WEP in 2004.

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) was the Wi-Fi Alliance’s direct response and replacement to the
increasingly apparent vulnerabilities of the WEP standard. WPA was formally adopted in 2003, a
year before WEP was officially retired. The most common WPA configuration is WPA-PSK
(Pre-Shared Key). The keys used by WPA are 256-bit, a significant increase over the 64-bit and
128-bit keys used in the WEP system.

Some of the significant changes implemented with WPA included message integrity checks (to
determine if an attacker had captured or altered packets passed between the access point and
client) and the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). TKIP employs a per-packet key system
that was radically more secure than the fixed key system used by WEP. The TKIP encryption
standard was later superseded by Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

Despite what a significant improvement WPA was over WEP, the ghost of WEP haunted WPA.
TKIP, a core component of WPA,  was designed to be easily rolled out via firmware upgrades
onto existing WEP-enabled devices. As such, it had to recycle certain elements used in the WEP
system which, ultimately, were also exploited.

WPA, like its predecessor WEP, has been shown via both proof-of-concept and applied public
demonstrations to be vulnerable to intrusion. Interestingly, the process by which WPA is usually
breached is not a direct attack on the WPA protocol (although such attacks have been
successfully demonstrated), but by attacks on a supplementary system that was rolled out with
WPA—Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)—which was designed to make it easy to link devices to
modern access points.
Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2)

WPA has, as of 2006, been officially superseded by WPA2. One of the most significant changes
between WPA and WPA2 is the mandatory use of AES algorithms and the introduction of
CCMP (Counter Cipher Mode with Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol) as a
replacement for TKIP. However, TKIP is still preserved in WPA2 as a fallback system and for
interoperability with WPA.

Currently, the primary security vulnerability to the actual WPA2 system is an obscure one (and
requires the attacker to already have access to the secured Wi-Fi network in order to gain access
to certain keys and then perpetuate an attack against other devices on the network). As such, the
security implications of the known WPA2 vulnerabilities are limited almost entirely to enterprise
level networks and deserve little to no practical consideration in regard to home network
security.

Unfortunately, the same vulnerability that is the biggest hole in the WPA armor—the attack
vector through the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)—remains in modern WPA2-capable access
points. Although breaking into a WPA/WPA2 secured network using this vulnerability requires
anywhere from 2-14 hours of sustained effort with a modern computer, it is still a legitimate
security concern. WPS should be disabled and, if possible, the firmware of the access point
should be flashed to a distribution that doesn’t even support WPS so the attack vector is entirely
removed.

SDMA

SDMA uses physical separation methods that permit the sharing of wireless channels. For
instance, a single channel may be used simultaneously if the users are spaced far enough from
one another to avoid interference. Known as frequency reuse, the method is widely used in
cellular radio systems. Cell sites are spaced from one another to minimize interference.

In addition to spacing, directional antennas are used to avoid interference. Most cell sites use
three antennas to create 120° sectors that allow frequency sharing (Fig. 6a). New technologies
like smart antennas or adaptive arrays use dynamic beamforming to shrink signals into narrow
beams that can be focused on specific users, excluding all others (Fig. 6b).

6. SDMA separates users on shared frequencies by isolating them with directional antennas. Most cell
sites have three antenna arrays to separate their coverage into isolated 120° sectors (a). Adaptive arrays
use beamforming to pinpoint desired users while ignoring any others on the same frequency (b).

One unique variation of SDMA, polarization division multiple access (PDMA), separates signals
by using different polarizations of the antennas. Two different signals then can use the same
frequency, one transmitting a vertically polarized signal and the other transmitting a horizontally
polarized signal.

The signals won’t interfere with one another even if they’re on the same frequency because
they’re orthogonal and the antennas won’t respond to the oppositely polarized signal. Separate
vertical and horizontal receiver antennas are used to recover the two orthogonal signals. This
technique is widely used in satellite systems.

Polarization is also used for multiplexing in fiber optic systems. The new 100-Gbit/s systems use
dual polarization quadrature phase shift keying (DP-QPSK) to achieve high speeds on a single
fiber. The high-speed data is divided into two slower data streams, one using vertical light
polarization and the other horizontal light polarization. Polarization filters separate the two
signals at the transmitter and receiver and merge them back into the high-speed stream.

Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA)

SDMA increases the capacity of the system and transmission quality by focusing the signal into
narrow transmission beams. Through the use of smart antennas with beams pointed at the
direction of the mobile station, SDMA serves different users within the same region.

Mobile stations operating outside the bounds of these directed beams experience a near zero
interference from other mobile stations operating under the same base station with the same radio
frequency.
Since the beams are focused, the radio energy frequency can have increased base station range.
This attribute of SDMA allows base stations to have larger radio coverage with less radiated
energy. This narrow beam width also allows greater gain and clarity.

Under traditional mobile phone network systems, the base station radiates radio signals in all
directions within the cell without knowledge of the location of the mobile station. SDMA
technology channels radio signals based on the location of the mobile station. Through this
method, the SDMA architecture saves on valuable network resources and prevents redundant
signal transmission in areas where mobile devices are currently inactive.

The main advantage of SDMA is frequency reuse. Provided the reuse distance is preserved in the
network architecture, interference can be near zero, even if mobile stations use the same
allocated frequencies.

What Does Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) Mean?

Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a channel access method (CAM) used to facilitate
channel sharing without interference. TDMA allows multiple stations to share and use the same
transmission channel by dividing signals into different time slots. Users transmit in rapid
succession, and each one uses its own time slot. Thus, multiple stations (like mobiles) may share
the same frequency channel but only use part of its capacity.

Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)

Examples of TDMA include IS-136, personal digital cellular (PDC), integrated digital enhanced
network (iDEN) and the second generation (2G) Global System for Mobile Communications
(GSM).

TDMA allows a mobile station's radio component to listen and broadcast only in its assigned
time slot. During the remaining time period, the mobile station may apply network
measurements by detecting surrounding transmitters in different frequencies. This feature allows
interfrequency handover, which differs from code division multiple access (CDMA), where
frequency handover is difficult to achieve. However, CDMA allows handoffs, which enable
mobile stations to simultaneously communicate with up to six base stations.

TDMA is used in most 2G cellular systems, while 3G systems are based on CDMA. However,
TDMA remains relevant to modern systems. For example, combined TDMA, CDMA and time
division duplex (TDD) are universal terrestrial radio access (UTRA) systems that allow multiple
users to share one time slot.