IEEE 802.

11 Wireless LAN
presented by

Gaurav K. Singh
B150139CS
What is IEEE 802.11 ( ) protocol ?
 IEEE 802.11 is a working group, responsible for writing Wireless Local
Area Network (LAN) standards
 802.11 operates under
The “Sponsor”: IEEE LMSC “LAN / MAN Standards Committee” – aka “802”
IEEE Computer Society
IEEE-SA Standards Board
Scope of 802.11
Wireless local area networks
Typical range up to 100m
Generally use unlicensed spectrum
Deployments: Broadband network access, public venue
access, sensor networks, mesh networks, automotive.
 Present in these devices: laptops, phones, tablets, network
infrastructure, home appliances, consumer electronics,
healthcare devices
Topology

• The802.11 standard supports the formation of two distinct

types of BSSs (Basic Service Set).
• Thefirst type of BSS is known as ad hoc network, without an
access point.
• Thesecond type of BSS is known as infrastructure BSS, the
other one with an access point.
How Transmission takes place?
• Three different physical media:
• Spread spectrum radio in 2.4 GHz ISM band (2400 to 2483.5
MHz)
• Using frequency Hoping (FH): The 802.11 frequency
hopping physical layers uses 79 non-overlapping 1 MHz
Channels to transmit 1 Mbps data signal.
• Using Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) : The IEEE
802.11 uses a simple 11-chip Barker Sequence B11 [-
1,+1,-1,-1,+1,-1,-1,-1,+1,+1,+1] with QPSK or BPSK
modulation

• Infrared Signal in near visible range of 850 to 950

nanometers
What is going on in Access Point ?
What is going on in Access Point ?
How Access points are Selected ?
• Active Scanning: When a station joins a network or when it
wants to discontinue association with the existing AP.
• A station sends a probe frame.
• All APs within reach reply with a probe response
frame.
• The station selects one of the access points, and
sends the AP an Association Request frame.
• The AP replies with an Association Response
frame.
• Passive Scanning: When AP send Beacon frames periodically
and station may respond with Association Request frame to
join an AP.
Ingredients of MAC Protocols
• Carrier sense (CS)
Hardware capable of sensing whether transmission
taking place in vicinity
• Collision detection (CD)
Hardware capable of detecting collisions
• Collision avoidance (CA)
Protocol for avoiding collisions
• Acknowledgments
When collision detection not possible, link-layer
mechanism for identifying failed transmissions
• Backoff mechanism
Method for estimating contention and deferring
transmissions
Medium Access Control Protocols ?
• Schedule-based: Establish transmission schedules statically or dynamically
FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access)
TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
• Contention-based:
o Let the stations contend for the channel
o Random access protocols
Aloha
CSMA (Carrier-sense multiple access)
MACA (Multiple access collision avoidance)
CSMA/CA
• Reservation-based:
Reservations made during a contention phase
Size of packet in contention phase much smaller than a data
packet
• Space-division multiple access:
Serve multiple users simultaneously by using directional
antennas
IEEE 802.11 Frames
Advantages of Wireless LAN

• Availability of low-cost portable equipments

• Mobility
• Installation speed and simplicity
• Installation flexiility
Limitations of WLAN

• Low data rate

• Occupational saftey concerns
• Fluctuation of the strength (fading)
• Lower reliability due to susceptibility of radio transmission
to noise and interference
• Vulnerable to eavesdropping leading to security problem
Security

• WirelessLANs are subject to possible breaches from unwanted

monitoring.
• IEEE802.11 specifies optional MAC layer security system known
as Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP).
• AdvancedEncryption Standard (AES) 802.11i for authentication
and encryption.
 802.11 Extensions
• IEEE 802.11a
• Makes use of 5-GHz band
• Provides rates of 6, 9 , 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54 Mbps
• Uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
• Sub-carrier modulated using BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM or
• 64-QAM

• IEEE 802.11b
• Provides data rates of 5.5 and 11 Mbps
• DSSS and complementary code keying (CCK) modulation

• IEEE 802.11g
• Extends data rates to up to 54 Mbps
• Uses OFDM, in the 2.4 GHz band