802.11b

802.11

Wireless networking has been around for some time. The University of Hawaii pioneered the wireless LAN idea with an experiment called ALOHANET way back in 1971. ALOHANET was an expensive, big-iron system solving a serious problem-trading data among university sites scattered across four islands-but the principles are the same as those that govern data-trading between the machine in your den and the one in your kids' rooms. Sun Microsystems created a prescient hand-held mini-tablet computer called the Star 7 in 1992, which included 900 MHz wireless networking, but it never made it to market.

The first wireless LAN technology I ever saw was a 900 MHz UHF ISM band WaveLAN system, which was demonstrated at a COMDEX trade show in 1994. The demo consisted of a laptop with a PCMCIA card (physically identical to today's Wi-Fi PCMCIA cards) networked to a PC about ten feet away. The data rate was 1.6 Mbps, which seemed mighty fast at the time.

The WaveLAN system worked, and worked well. It was expensive, but the people who needed it needed it bad, and WaveLAN and numerous systems like it became a small and little-known sliver of the networking industry, mostly used by high-priced consultants to create proprietary solutions to specific problems, usually for big corporations. Everybody had a different scheme for bundling data into packets and spinning it off into the airwaves, and nobody's scheme talked to anybody else's scheme. That was the way all the vendors in that era wanted it; their customers had money and were willing to spend lots of it, so there was bottom-line value in keeping them captive to a proprietary system.

In 1997, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) released their 802.11 standard for wireless networking, and everything changed.

The Magic of (IEEE) Numbers

The IEEE is a large and influential body of engineers that does a great many things, but what they do that matters most (in my view) is develop and establish technology standards. Standards are important because they enlarge markets, and make it possible for technologies manufactured by different vendors to interoperate and communicate with one another. This is especially important in the area of computer communications, in which the whole idea is to get the machinery talking.

The IEEE has been doing this for a long time, and in many areas, some of them pretty far removed from computing. The process, however, happens in pretty much the same way: The IEEE establishes a 'working group' to pursue a particular standards issue. The group meets and hashes out the issue, sometimes for several years, and eventually creates a document that defines or modifies a standard. The document is then sent out to interested IEEE members for a mail vote. Based on the results of that balloting, the document is either sent back for further work or is adopted as a new (or modified) standard.

Working groups are given numbers. When a working group is tasked with modifying an existing standard that already has a number, the group is given a new number that has either additional digits or else letters appended to the existing standard number.

The 802 Standard

The mother of all IEEE networking standards is the 802 standard, which was under discussion for most of ten years. This standard, which was finally adopted in 1990, governed the lowest level of networking functions: Physical and link control. (These are the bottom two layers of the Open Systems Interconnection model for networking. If you're reasonably technically inclined, the OSI model is worth some study, as it is enormously useful in keeping the countless network standards and mechanisms separated and correctly related. Unfortunately, it's a big subject, and I cannot cover it in detail in this book.)

The overall networking standard was numbered 802. Different standard areas within the greater 802 standard were given decimal qualifiers.The original Ethernet protocol invented by Xerox in the early 1970s was refined slightly and given the number 802.3 when it was standardized as part of the 802 definition. The Token Ring networking technology introduced by IBM in the mid-1980s was given the number 802.5.

In the mid-1990s, the IEEE created a working group to develop a standard for wireless networking. The working group was given the number 802.11 (which is the eleventh working group under the 802 standard, not a refinement of 802.1) and it was adopted in 1997.

The original 802.11 standard specified a frequency of 2.4 GHz with available data rates of 1 and 2 megabits per second (Mbps). 802.11 products were marketed almost immediately, but were slow to be accepted, at least in part because the data rates were so slow. 802.3 wired Ethernet technology had gone from 10-Base-T (10 Mbps) to 100-Base-T (100 Mbps) at about the same time, and 2 Mbps looked pretty grim by comparison. Furthermore, radio hardware that could work effectively at 2.4 GHz frequencies was still pretty expensive at that time. The end result was that 802.11 networking did not exactly set the world on fire. The IEEE almost immediately created several task groups to begin work on improving 802.11, especially in the area of data rate.

The fire came in 1999, when the 802.11b amendment to 802.11 was accepted and published. 802.11b was formerly known as '802.11 High Rate' because it added 5.5 Mbps and 11 Mbps data rates to the existing 1 and 2 Mbps rates. 802.11b was the right spec at the right time, and most manufacturers who had been selling 802.11 hardware wasted no time updating their products to adhere to the new 802.11b standard. Although still fairly expensive (I paid $1200 for an 802.11b access point in early 2000) the higher bit rates were enough to put 802.11b wireless networking on the radar screens of large and mid-sized companies that could afford it.

High prices kept 802.11b networking out of the hands of ordinary consumers until 2000, when Apple's AirPort wireless networking system took prices down into consumer territory. After that, it was le deluge, especially once an industry consortium called the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) created the Wi-Fi compatibility testing program. (WECA later changed its name to the Wi-Fi Alliance.) At this writing wireless access points can be had for under $100, and client adapters for as little as $50.

802.11b remains the most significant 802.11 standard, but others have now been released and still more are in process. 802.11a products reached the market late in 2001, with still-faster bit rates (though much higher prices), and 802.11g products are on the horizon. (Note that the letters are assigned when a task group is formed, not when the eventual standard is finalized and adopted. The 802.11a and 802.11b task groups were formed at the same time, but the 802.11b folks had a less difficult job to do and finished first.)

Some 802.11 task groups are addressing only specific features of 802.11 networking, like encryption. Not all letters in the 'alphabet soup' are full upgrades to the 802.11 idea.

Competing wireless network technologies are out there, but none have the same sense of destiny that 802.11 has. A technology called HomeRF hit the market early in 2000, and although slower than Wi-Fi, it was at its introduction much cheaper, and has arguably better security and built-in machinery for handling telephone calls. (In a sense, HomeRF merges wireless LANs and cordless phones.) However, HomeRF never achieved what 802.11 achieved: The magic of an IEEE standards designation.

The IEEE imprimatur, with its respect among major industry hardware vendors, is what makes the magic happen. Unless or until a directly competing technology gets that imprimatur, I don't see anything knocking 802.11 from its leadership position in wireless networking.

Individual explanations of all the significant 'alphabet soup' extensions to 802.11 follow this topic.