16.4 IEEE 802

The Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is a well-recognized body that was founded in 1884. The IEEE is a global technical, professional society serving the public interest and members in electrical, electronics, computer, information, and other technologies.

The IEEE, which is based in the United States sponsors more than 300 conferences each year, including technical conferences, workshops, professional/careers/technical policy meetings, and standards working group meetings. In addition, the IEEE is involved in almost 200 "topical interest" meetings, either as consultants to the technical program or as nonfinancial partners .

The IEEE standards process consists of more than 30,000 volunteers and a Standards Board. IEEE is responsible for creating standards for the very popular local area networks (LAN) standards, such as 802.3 (also known as Ethernet), IEEE 802.5 (token ring), and 802.11 (wireless LAN).

The standards process begins with the submission of a Project Authorization Request (PAR) to the Standards Board. According to IEEE, a PAR is the means by which standards projects are started. PARs define the scope, purpose, and contact points for the new project. If the Standards Board approves the PAR, then the standards process is initiated by the creation of a standards working group. The members of the standards working group are volunteers and may or may not be members of the IEEE.

The members of the IEEE working group create a draft standard. This draft is reviewed by a balloting group of IEEE members for review and approval. The constitution of the ballot group consists of standard's developers, potential users and others having general interest.

Once this process is completed, the Standards Board conducts a review of the Final Draft Standard for the approval. Standards are typically reviewed once every five years for revision.

One of the standards of interest to us is the IEEE 802 family, which is formally referred to as the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee. According to the IEEE, the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee develops local area network standards and metropolitan area network standards. The most widely used standards are for the Ethernet family, token ring, wireless LAN, bridging and virtual bridged LANs. An individual working group provides the focus for each area. IEEE 802 family standards and documents cover layers 1 and 2 of the OSI reference model.

Let's review some of the key documents and task groups with respect to the 802 and specifically the 802.11 family:

• IEEE 802 : This provides Overview and Architecture

• IEEE 802.1 : This document along with IEEE 802 provides the scope of work for 802 standards.

• IEEE 802.2 : It specifies Logical Link Control (LLC) layer. LLC creates a glue that binds the Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical (PHY) layer.

• IEEE 802.11 : This standard specifies MAC and PHY layers. The layers are specified on a 2.4GHz operating frequency with data rates of 1 and 2Mbps. It provides two options for the modulation technique: frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) or direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS). Since the approval of the initial 802.11 standard, the IEEE 802.11 WG has made several revisions through various task groups. These groups enhance portions of the 802.11 standard. A suffix of an alphabet, such as 802.11a and 802.11b, represents a task group.

  • IEE 802.11a : This PHY standard specifies WLAN operation in the 5GHz band using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). 802.11a supports data rates ranging from 6 to 54Mbps.

  • IEEE 802.11b : This PHY standard enhances the initial 802.11 DSSS to include 5.5Mbps and 11Mbps data rates in addition to the 1Mbps and 2Mbps data rates. 802.11b provides the higher data rate by using CCK (Complementary Code Keying), a modulation technique that makes efficient use of the radio spectrum. Compliance with 802.11b is also the basis for the Wi-Fi certification.

  • IEEE 802.11c : This standard contains information to ensure proper bridge operations. It is useful for the product developers for developing the WLAN access points.

  • IEEE 802.11d : This defines PHY requirements to satisfy regulatory requirements within different countries . This is especially important for operation in the 5GHz bands because the use of these bands differ widely from one country to another.

  • IEEE 802.11e : This is refining the IEEE 802.11 MAC specifications to improve Quality of Service (QoS) for better support of audio and video applications.

  • IEEE 802.11f : This is specifying an inter access point protocol to support the 802.11 distribution system functions, e.g., user roaming.

  • IEEE 802.11g : This task group is extending 802.11b PHY to increase data rate to 54 Mbps, while operating in the 2.4GHz band. 802.11g decided to use OFDM instead of DSSS as a modulation technique.

  • IEEE 802.11h : This task group addresses the requirements in Europe for reducing the interference in the 5 GHz band. Satellite communications is the designated primary user in 5 GHz band.

  • IEEE 802.11i : This task group is defining enhancements to the MAC layer for enhanced security. It is exploring stronger encryption techniques.

The task groups e, f, g, h and i are setting the stage for the next generation WLAN. QoS work from 802.11a will provide better usage of the resources and improved user perception of the wireless IP services. 802.11f will allow user roaming from one access point to another, thus potentially can increase offered services and WLAN usage. 802.11g is increasing data rates to 54 Mbps in the most popular and globally available band, i.e. 2.4 GHz. This technology will be beneficial for improved access to fixed network LAN and inter-network infrastructure. It will also enable creation of higher performance ad-hoc networks. 802.11h provides dynamic channel selection (DCS) and transmit power control (TPC) for devices operating in the 5GHz band (802.11a). In this way it avoids interference with the primary user (satellite communications) of 5GHz in Europe. It creates additional mechanisms for indoor vs. outdoor channel selection. It will likely become the successor of 802.11a. 802.11i is actively defining enhancements to the MAC Layer to enhance the security of the data exchanged over the air link. 802.11's optional encryption standard, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), is the existing available security mechanism. This uses static encryption keys and does not have key distribution management. 802.11i will incorporate 802.1x that provides a framework for authenticating and controlling user traffic to a protected network. 802.1x provides dynamically varying encryption keys. It ties a protocol called Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) and provides multiple authentication methods , such as token cards, Kerberos, certificates, and public key authentication. 802.11i will use a stronger encryption algorithm such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). In summary, 802.11 task groups are exploring solutions for providing higher speed access, reduced interference, better quality management, strong security, and user roaming.