Glossary

Numbers

802.11

The base standard in the family of IEEE WLAN standards. 802.11 includes three primary physical layer standards; 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g.

802.11a

802.11a is one of the three primary Wi-Fi standards. 802.11a devices have a maximum capacity of 54 Mbps and operate in the unregulated 5 GHz radio band. 802.11a devices do not interoperate with 802.11b or 802.11g devices because they operate on a different frequency.

802.11b

Sometimes called Wireless B, 802.11b is one of the three primary Wi-Fi standards. 802.11b devices have a maximum capacity of 11 Mbps and operate in the unregulated 2.4 GHz radio band. Because there is an abundance of inexpensive 802.11b equipment, it is still a popular standard. However, it is losing ground to faster 802.11g devices.

802.11g

Sometimes called Wireless G, 802.11g is one of the three primary Wi-Fi standards. 802.11g devices have a maximum connection speed of 54 Mbps, although in practice they rarely achieve more than 30 Mbps. 802.11g devices operate in the unregulated 2.4 GHz radio band and are backward compatible with 802.11b devices.

802.11i

A new security supplement to 802.11, 802.11i addresses security holes in the Wi-Fi standards, and improves encryption (replaces WEP), key management, distribution, and user authentication. The Wi-Fi Alliance based the new Wi-Fi encryption standard, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA),on an early draft of 802.11i.

802.11x

802.11x is a generic reference used by authors and journalists when referring to all of the Wi-Fi standards. In this book, I use it interchangeably with Wi-Fi to refer to 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g.