Wireless LAN (802.

11)
Evolution and Latest Trends
Global Internet adoption and devices and connection
Internet users
Nearly two-thirds of the global population will
have Internet access by 2023. There will be 5.3
billion total Internet users (66 percent of
global population) by 2023, up from 3.9 billion
(51 percent of global population) in 2018.

Devices and connections

The number of devices connected to IP
networks will be more than three times the
global population by 2023. There will be 29.3
billion networked devices by 2023, up from
18.4 billion in 2018.

A growing number of M2M applications, such

as smart meters, video surveillance,
healthcare monitoring, transportation, and
asset tracking, are contributing in a major way
to the growth of devices and connections
 Introduction to 802.11
Over the past 20 years, IEEE 802.11
commonly referred to as Wi-Fi has evolved
from 2 Mbps to over gigabit speeds,
a 1000-fold increase in throughput.

• New protocols such as 802.11n, 802.11ac

and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6).
• Support for higher order of modulation
schemes such as 64 QAM, 256 QAM and
1024 QAM.
• Supports transmission of multiple
streams to a single client or multiple
clients simultaneously.
• Increasing peak data rates
• Efforts have been made to improve
spectral efficiency which characterizes
how well the system uses the available
spectrum.
• Multi-user techniques such as multi-user
multiple-input-multiple-output (MU-MIMO)
and orthogonal frequency division
multiple access (OFDMA) have been
introduced to improve network efficiency
and network capacity.
IEEE 802 Family of Standards
IEEE 802 is a family of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards for local area
networks (LAN), personal area network (PAN), and metropolitan area networks (MAN).

The services and protocols specified in IEEE 802 map to the lower two layers (data link and physical) of
the seven-layer OSI networking reference model. IEEE 802 divides the OSI data link layer into two sub-
layers: logical link control (LLC) and medium access control (MAC), as follows:

•Data link layer

• LLC sublayer
• MAC sublayer
•Physical layer

802.2 : LLC
802.3 : Ethernet (Based on CSMA/CD)
802.5 : Token Ring
802.11 : Wireless LAN (Based on CSMA/CA), Half Duplex
What is Wi-Fi?
In a general sense, Wi-Fi refers to the wireless
LAN technologies that utilize the IEEE 802.11
standards for communications. Wi-Fi
products use radio waves to transmit data
from a client device to either an access point,
which includes a router, and the router
completes a connection to other devices on
the LAN, WAN or the internet.

Initially the technology used the 2.4 GHz

frequency, but has since expanded to 5 GHz,
60 GHz, and soon 6 GHz frequency bands.

The term Wi-Fi was created by the Wireless

Ethernet Compatibility Alliance, which later
became the Wi-Fi Alliance.
 802.11 Terminologies
•Basic Service Set (BSS) − A basic service set is a group of
stations communicating at the physical layer level. BSS can be
of two categories depending upon the mode of operation−
• Infrastructure BSS − Here, the devices communicate
with other devices through access points.
• Independent BSS − Here, the devices communicate in a
peer-to-peer basis in an ad hoc manner.
•Extended Service Set (ESS) − The ESS configuration consists
of multiple basic service set cells that can be linked by either wired or
wireless backbones called a distributed system.

•Distribution System : A wireless distribution system (WDS) is a

method of interconnecting access points in a wireless local area
network (WLAN)

• BSS ID : Cell Identifier, 6 Octets long, known as MAC Address of

Access Point

• SSID : Service Set Identifier

802.11 Scanning
802.11 Authentication
802.11 Association
802.11 Layers/Sub Layers
802.11 Frame Format

• Data Frame
• Control Frame
• RTS, CTS, ACK
• Management Frame
• Beacon
• Probe
• Power Management
• Association
• Authentication
802.11 Frequency Bands
802.11 Standards & Features

2.4GHz/5Ghz PHY, BW Features/Max Data Rate

802.11b 2.4G DSSS, 22 Mhz 11Mbps
802.11a 5G OFDM, 20MHz 54Mbps
802.11g 2.4G OFDM, 20MHz 54 Mbps
802.11n 2.4 & 5G OFDM, 20/40MHz SU, MIMO upto 4user, 450Mbps
802.11ac 5G OFDM, 20/40/80MHz 80+80 MHz SU/MU MIMO, upto 8 user,
1.73Gbps
802.11ax 2.4G,5G & 6G OFDMA, 20/40/80/160MHz 37 user support, 2.4Gbps
802.11be 2.4G,5G & 6G OFDMA, 20/40/80/160/320MHz MIMO Support
802.11 a/g/n PHY Data Rates Support
64 subcarriers, 312.5KHz carrier spacing
48 Data sub carriers
Symbol Duration : 4 us, 0.8us GI (Guard Interval)
802.11 Carrier Sensing Physical Carrier Sense is based on
1. ED (Energy Detect) : -82db or more
2. SD (Signal Detect) : -62db or more
802.11 IFS (Interframe Spacing, CW)
In Order to Reduce Collision
concept of Back Off Window
introduced where each station
after waiting for DIFS will wait for
some random number of slots
before it begins the transmission.
• Slot time for 5G band is 9us,
• SIFS is 16us,
• PIFS is SIFS + 1 slot => 25us
• DIFS is SIFS + 2 slot => 34us
802.11 DIFS/SIFS
802.11 Power Management
802.11 Adaptive Rate Adaptation
802.11e Quality of Service
802.11n, Increasing Throughput by Aggregation (AMSDU)
802.11n, Increasing Throughput by Aggregation (AMPDU)
802.11n, Increasing Throughput by Aggregation (AMPDU+AMSDU)

Using Aggregation
1. RTS/CTS/ACK frame overhead gets
reduced substantially
2. DIFS/CW overhead reduces
3. PHY overhead reduces
802.11n/11ac SU and MU MIMO