WLAN Evolution - IEEE 802.11 Standards
WLAN Evolution - IEEE 802.11 Standards!
In this article, we are going to learn about various IEEE
802.11 standards to understand how WLAN has evolved since 1997.
IEEE 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g also written as
802.11a/b/g collectively were the
initial standards and these met the Wireless LAN requirement with data
rates up to 54Mbps and supported 2.4 and 5 GHz frequency bands. As time
passed the data requirement for new devices increased and the demand for higher
bandwidth WLAN standards increased.
IEEE 802.11n standard added more throughput up to 600
Mbps (theoretically) but typically was able to provide decent bandwidth up to
300Mbps which was higher than the earlier stands as mentioned above. This was
achieved by increasing the channel width using the modulation technique like
QAM and Multiple input/multiple output (MIMO)
IEEE 802.11ac standard was developed that uses only a 5 GHz
range and provides a very high throughput (VHT) compared to the 802.11n standard
that was meeting the demand for a High Throughput (HT) environment. This standard as able to
support data rates up to 6.9 Gbps (theoretically) and is also known as Wi-Fi 5.
IEEE 802.11ax standard is the latest and support both 2.4
and 5 GHz with data rates up to 4.8 Gbps. Multiple-user MIMO was introduced here
where multiple transmission was possible at the same time. The early version of
the 802.11ax standard is also known as Wi-Fi 6.
IEEE 802.11ax extension was developed in 2020 that was able
to support data rates up to 7.8 Gbps. This standard was able to support 6 GHz spectrum
and 1 Gbps channel width. It is also known as Wi-Fi 6E.
A quick summary is below for reference.
Hope you find this informative.