Generation | IEEE standard |
Adopted | Maximum link rate (Mb/s) |
Radio frequency (GHz) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Wi-Fi 8 | 802.11bn | expected 2028[1] | 100 000[2] | 2.4, 5, 6[3] |
Wi-Fi 7 | 802.11be | expected 2024 | 0.4–23 059 | 2.4, 5, 6[4] |
Wi-Fi 6E | 802.11ax | 2021 | 0.4–9608[5] | 2.4, 5, 6[a] |
Wi-Fi 6 | 2.4, 5 | |||
Wi-Fi 5 | 802.11ac | 2013 | 6.5–6933 | 5[b] |
Wi-Fi 4 | 802.11n | 2009 | 6.5–600 | 2.4, 5 |
(Wi-Fi 3*) | 802.11g | 2003 | 6–54 | 2.4 |
(Wi-Fi 2*) | 802.11a | 1999 | 5 | |
(Wi-Fi 1*) | 802.11b | 1999 | 1–11 | 2.4 |
(Wi-Fi 0*) | 802.11 | 1997 | 1–2 | 2.4 |
*Wi‑Fi 0, 1, 2, and 3 are named by retroactive inference. They do not exist in the official nomenclature.[6][7][8] |
IEEE 802.11a-1999 or 802.11a was an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless local network specifications that defined requirements for an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) communication system. It was originally designed to support wireless communication in the unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) bands (in the 5–6 GHz frequency range) as regulated in the United States by the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 47, Section 15.407.
Originally described as clause 17 of the 1999 specification, it is now defined in clause 18 of the 2012 specification and provides protocols that allow transmission, and reception of data at rates of 1.5 to 54 Mbit/s. It has seen widespread worldwide implementation, particularly within the corporate workspace. While the original amendment is no longer valid, the term "802.11a" is still used by wireless access point (cards and routers) manufacturers to describe interoperability of their systems at 5.8 GHz, 54 Mbit/s (54 x 106 bits per second).
802.11 is a set of IEEE standards that govern wireless networking transmission methods. They are commonly used today in their 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11ac and 802.11ax versions to provide wireless connectivity in the home, office and some commercial establishments.
Description
editIEEE802.11a is the first wireless standard to employ packet based OFDM, based on a proposal from Richard van Nee[9] from Lucent Technologies in Nieuwegein. OFDM was adopted as a draft 802.11a standard in July 1998 after merging with an NTT proposal. It was ratified in 1999. The 802.11a standard uses the same core protocol as the original standard, operates in 5 GHz band, and uses a 52-subcarrier orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) with a maximum raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s, which yields realistic net achievable throughput in the mid-20 Mbit/s. The data rate is reduced to 48, 36, 24, 18, 12, 9 then 6 Mbit/s if required. 802.11a originally had 12/13 non-overlapping channels, 12 that can be used indoor, and 4/5 of the 12 that can be used in outdoor point to point configurations. Recently many countries of the world are allowing operation in the 5.47 to 5.725 GHz Band as a secondary user using a sharing method derived in 802.11h. This will add another 12/13 Channels to the overall 5 GHz band enabling significant overall wireless network capacity enabling the possibility of 24+ channels in some countries. 802.11a is not interoperable with 802.11b as they operate on separate bands. Most enterprise class Access Points have dual band capability.
Using the 5 GHz band gives 802.11a a significant advantage, since the 2.4 GHz band is heavily used to the point of being crowded. Degradation caused by such conflicts can cause frequent dropped connections and degradation of service. However, this high carrier frequency also brings a slight disadvantage: The effective overall range of 802.11a is slightly less than that of 802.11b/g; 802.11a signals cannot penetrate as far as those for 802.11b because they are absorbed more readily by walls and other solid objects in their path, because the path loss in signal strength is proportional to the square of the signal frequency. On the other hand, OFDM has fundamental propagation advantages when in a high multipath environment, such as an indoor office, and the higher frequencies enable the building of smaller antennas with higher RF system gain which counteract the disadvantage of a higher band of operation. The increased number of usable channels (4 to 8 times as many in FCC countries) and the near absence of other interfering systems (microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby monitors) give 802.11a significant aggregate bandwidth and reliability advantages over 802.11b/g.
Regulatory issues
editDifferent countries have different regulatory support, although a 2003 World Radiotelecommunications Conference improved worldwide standards coordination. 802.11a was quickly approved by regulations in the United States and Japan, but in other areas, such as the European Union, it had to wait longer for approval. European regulators were considering the use of the European HIPERLAN standard, but in mid-2002 cleared 802.11a for use in Europe.
Timing and compatibility of products
edit802.11a products started shipping late, lagging 802.11b products due to 5 GHz components being more difficult to manufacture. First generation product performance was poor and plagued with problems. When second generation products started shipping, 802.11a was not widely adopted in the consumer space primarily because the less-expensive 802.11b was already widely adopted. However, 802.11a later saw significant penetration into enterprise network environments, despite the initial cost disadvantages, particularly for businesses which required increased capacity and reliability over 802.11b/g-only networks.
With the arrival of less expensive early 802.11g products on the market, which were backwards-compatible with 802.11b, the bandwidth advantage of the 5 GHz 802.11a was eliminated. Manufacturers of 802.11a equipment responded to the lack of market success by significantly improving the implementations (current-generation 802.11a technology has range characteristics nearly identical to those of 802.11b), and by making technology that can use more than one band a standard.
Dual-band, or dual-mode Access Points and Network Interface Cards (NICs) that can automatically handle a and b/g, are now common in all the markets, and very close in price to b/g- only devices.
Technical description
editOf the 52 OFDM subcarriers, 48 are for data and 4 are pilot subcarriers with a carrier separation of 0.3125 MHz (20 MHz/64). Each of these subcarriers can be a BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM or 64-QAM. The total bandwidth is 20 MHz with an occupied bandwidth of 16.6 MHz. Symbol duration is 4 microseconds, which includes a guard interval of 0.8 microseconds. The actual generation and decoding of orthogonal components is done in baseband using DSP which is then upconverted to 5 GHz at the transmitter. Each of the subcarriers could be represented as a complex number. The time domain signal is generated by taking an Inverse Fast Fourier transform (IFFT). Correspondingly the receiver downconverts, samples at 20 MHz and does an FFT to retrieve the original coefficients. The advantages of using OFDM include reduced multipath effects in reception and increased spectral efficiency.[10]
RATE bits | Modulation type |
Coding rate |
Data rate (Mbit/s)[c] |
---|---|---|---|
1101 | BPSK | 1/2 | 6 |
1111 | BPSK | 3/4 | 9 |
0101 | QPSK | 1/2 | 12 |
0111 | QPSK | 3/4 | 18 |
1001 | 16-QAM | 1/2 | 24 |
1011 | 16-QAM | 3/4 | 36 |
0001 | 64-QAM | 2/3 | 48 |
0011 | 64-QAM | 3/4 | 54 |
- ^ Wi-Fi 6E is the industry name that identifies Wi-Fi devices that operate in 6 GHz. Wi-Fi 6E offers the features and capabilities of Wi-Fi 6 extended into the 6 GHz band.
- ^ 802.11ac only specifies operation in the 5 GHz band. Operation in the 2.4 GHz band is specified by 802.11n.
- ^ The data rate is for 20 MHz channel spacing.
Comparison
editFrequency range, or type |
PHY | Protocol | Release date[11] |
Frequency | Bandwidth | Stream data rate[12] |
Max. MIMO streams |
Modulation | Approx. range | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Indoor | Outdoor | |||||||||||
(GHz) | (MHz) | (Mbit/s) | ||||||||||
1–7 GHz | DSSS[13], |
802.11-1997 | June 1997 | 2.4 | 22 | 1, 2 | — | DSSS, |
20 m (66 ft) | 100 m (330 ft) | ||
HR/DSSS[13] | 802.11b | September 1999 | 2.4 | 22 | 1, 2, 5.5, 11 | — | CCK, DSSS | 35 m (115 ft) | 140 m (460 ft) | |||
OFDM | 802.11a | September 1999 | 5 | 5, 10, 20 | 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54 (for 20 MHz bandwidth, divide by 2 and 4 for 10 and 5 MHz) |
— | OFDM | 35 m (115 ft) | 120 m (390 ft) | |||
802.11j | November 2004 | 4.9, 5.0 [B][14] |
? | ? | ||||||||
802.11y | November 2008 | 3.7[C] | ? | 5,000 m (16,000 ft)[C] | ||||||||
802.11p | July 2010 | 5.9 | 200 m | 1,000 m (3,300 ft)[15] | ||||||||
802.11bd | December 2022 | 5.9, 60 | 500 m | 1,000 m (3,300 ft) | ||||||||
ERP-OFDM[16] | 802.11g | June 2003 | 2.4 | 38 m (125 ft) | 140 m (460 ft) | |||||||
HT-OFDM[17] | 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) |
October 2009 | 2.4, 5 | 20 | Up to 288.8[D] | 4 | MIMO-OFDM (64-QAM) |
70 m (230 ft) | 250 m (820 ft)[18] | |||
40 | Up to 600[D] | |||||||||||
VHT-OFDM[17] | 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) |
December 2013 | 5 | 20 | Up to 693[D] | 8 | DL MU-MIMO OFDM (256-QAM) |
35 m (115 ft)[19] | ? | |||
40 | Up to 1600[D] | |||||||||||
80 | Up to 3467[D] | |||||||||||
160 | Up to 6933[D] | |||||||||||
HE-OFDMA | 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E) |
May 2021 | 2.4, 5, 6 | 20 | Up to 1147[E] | 8 | UL/DL MU-MIMO OFDMA (1024-QAM) |
30 m (98 ft) | 120 m (390 ft)[F] | |||
40 | Up to 2294[E] | |||||||||||
80 | Up to 5.5 Gbit/s[E] | |||||||||||
80+80 | Up to 11.0 Gbit/s[E] | |||||||||||
EHT-OFDMA | 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7) |
Dec 2024 (est.) |
2.4, 5, 6 | 80 | Up to 11.5 Gbit/s[E] | 16 | UL/DL MU-MIMO OFDMA (4096-QAM) |
30 m (98 ft) | 120 m (390 ft)[F] | |||
160 (80+80) |
Up to 23 Gbit/s[E] | |||||||||||
240 (160+80) |
Up to 35 Gbit/s[E] | |||||||||||
320 (160+160) |
Up to 46.1 Gbit/s[E] | |||||||||||
UHR | 802.11bn (Wi-Fi 8) |
May 2028 (est.) |
2.4, 5, 6, 42, 60, 71 |
320 | Up to 100000 (100 Gbit/s) |
16 | Multi-link MU-MIMO OFDM (8192-QAM) |
? | ? | |||
WUR[G] | 802.11ba | October 2021 | 2.4, 5 | 4, 20 | 0.0625, 0.25 (62.5 kbit/s, 250 kbit/s) |
— | OOK (multi-carrier OOK) | ? | ? | |||
mmWave (WiGig) |
DMG[20] | 802.11ad | December 2012 | 60 | 2160 (2.16 GHz) |
Up to 8085[21] (8 Gbit/s) |
— | 3.3 m (11 ft)[22] | ? | |||
802.11aj | April 2018 | 60[H] | 1080[23] | Up to 3754 (3.75 Gbit/s) |
— | single carrier, low-power single carrier[A] | ? | ? | ||||
CMMG | 802.11aj | April 2018 | 45[H] | 540, 1080 |
Up to 15015[24] (15 Gbit/s) |
4[25] | OFDM, single carrier | ? | ? | |||
EDMG[26] | 802.11ay | July 2021 | 60 | Up to 8640 (8.64 GHz) |
Up to 303336[27] (303 Gbit/s) |
8 | OFDM, single carrier | 10 m (33 ft) | 100 m (328 ft) | |||
Sub 1 GHz (IoT) | TVHT[28] | 802.11af | February 2014 | 0.054– 0.79 |
6, 7, 8 | Up to 568.9[29] | 4 | MIMO-OFDM | ? | ? | ||
S1G[28] | 802.11ah | May 2017 | 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 |
1–16 | Up to 8.67[30] (@2 MHz) |
4 | ? | ? | ||||
Light (Li-Fi) |
LC (VLC/OWC) |
802.11bb | December 2023 (est.) |
800–1000 nm | 20 | Up to 9.6 Gbit/s | — | O-OFDM | ? | ? | ||
(IrDA) |
802.11-1997 | June 1997 | 850–900 nm | ? | 1, 2 | — | ? | ? | ||||
802.11 Standard rollups | ||||||||||||
802.11-2007 (802.11ma) | March 2007 | 2.4, 5 | Up to 54 | DSSS, OFDM | ||||||||
802.11-2012 (802.11mb) | March 2012 | 2.4, 5 | Up to 150[D] | DSSS, OFDM | ||||||||
802.11-2016 (802.11mc) | December 2016 | 2.4, 5, 60 | Up to 866.7 or 6757[D] | DSSS, OFDM | ||||||||
802.11-2020 (802.11md) | December 2020 | 2.4, 5, 60 | Up to 866.7 or 6757[D] | DSSS, OFDM | ||||||||
802.11me | September 2024 (est.) |
2.4, 5, 6, 60 | Up to 9608 or 303336 | DSSS, OFDM | ||||||||
|
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Reshef, Ehud; Cordeiro, Carlos (2023). "Future Directions for Wi-Fi 8 and Beyond". IEEE Communications Magazine. 60 (10). IEEE. doi:10.1109/MCOM.003.2200037. Retrieved 2024-05-21.
- ^ "What is Wi-Fi 8?". everythingrf.com. March 25, 2023. Retrieved January 21, 2024.
- ^ Giordano, Lorenzo; Geraci, Giovanni; Carrascosa, Marc; Bellalta, Boris (November 21, 2023). "What Will Wi-Fi 8 Be? A Primer on IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability". arXiv:2303.10442.
- ^ "Understanding Wi-Fi 4/5/6/6E/7". wiisfi.com.
- ^ "MCS table (updated with 80211ax data rates)". semfionetworks.com.
- ^ Kastrenakes, Jacob (2018-10-03). "Wi-Fi Now Has Version Numbers, and Wi-Fi 6 Comes Out Next Year". The Verge. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
- ^ Phillips, Gavin (18 January 2021). "The Most Common Wi-Fi Standards and Types, Explained". MUO - Make Use Of. Archived from the original on 11 November 2021. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
- ^ "Wi-Fi Generation Numbering". ElectronicsNotes. Archived from the original on 11 November 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
- ^ Van Nee, Richard (January 1998). "OFDM physical layer specification for the 5 GHz band". IEEE P802.11-98/12.
- ^ Van Nee, Richard; Prasad, Ramjee (December 1999). OFDM for Wireless Multimedia Communications. Boston: Artech House. ISBN 9780890065303.
- ^ "Official IEEE 802.11 working group project timelines". January 26, 2017. Retrieved 2017-02-12.
- ^ "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n: Longer-Range, Faster-Throughput, Multimedia-Grade Wi-Fi Networks" (PDF). Wi-Fi Alliance. September 2009.
- ^ a b Banerji, Sourangsu; Chowdhury, Rahul Singha. "On IEEE 802.11: Wireless LAN Technology". arXiv:1307.2661.
- ^ "The complete family of wireless LAN standards: 802.11 a, b, g, j, n" (PDF).
- ^ The Physical Layer of the IEEE 802.11p WAVE Communication Standard: The Specifications and Challenges (PDF). World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science. 2014.
- ^ IEEE Standard for Information Technology- Telecommunications and Information Exchange Between Systems- Local and Metropolitan Area Networks- Specific Requirements Part Ii: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications. (n.d.). doi:10.1109/ieeestd.2003.94282
- ^ a b "Wi-Fi Capacity Analysis for 802.11ac and 802.11n: Theory & Practice" (PDF).
- ^ Belanger, Phil; Biba, Ken (2007-05-31). "802.11n Delivers Better Range". Wi-Fi Planet. Archived from the original on 2008-11-24.
- ^ "IEEE 802.11ac: What Does it Mean for Test?" (PDF). LitePoint. October 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-08-16.
- ^ "IEEE Standard for Information Technology". IEEE Std 802.11aj-2018. April 2018. doi:10.1109/IEEESTD.2018.8345727.
- ^ "802.11ad - WLAN at 60 GHz: A Technology Introduction" (PDF). Rohde & Schwarz GmbH. November 21, 2013. p. 14.
- ^ "Connect802 - 802.11ac Discussion". www.connect802.com.
- ^ "Understanding IEEE 802.11ad Physical Layer and Measurement Challenges" (PDF).
- ^ "802.11aj Press Release".
- ^ "An Overview of China Millimeter-Wave Multiple Gigabit Wireless Local Area Network System". IEICE Transactions on Communications. E101.B (2): 262–276. 2018. doi:10.1587/transcom.2017ISI0004.
- ^ "IEEE 802.11ay: 1st real standard for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) via mmWave – Technology Blog". techblog.comsoc.org.
- ^ "P802.11 Wireless LANs". IEEE. pp. 2, 3. Archived from the original on 2017-12-06. Retrieved Dec 6, 2017.
- ^ a b "802.11 Alternate PHYs A whitepaper by Ayman Mukaddam" (PDF).
- ^ "TGaf PHY proposal". IEEE P802.11. 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2013-12-29.
- ^ "IEEE 802.11ah: A Long Range 802.11 WLAN at Sub 1 GHz" (PDF). Journal of ICT Standardization. 1 (1): 83–108. July 2013. doi:10.13052/jicts2245-800X.115.
- General
- "802.11a-1999 High-speed Physical Layer in the 5 GHz band" (PDF). 1999-02-11. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 24, 2003. Retrieved 2007-09-24.