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August 12, 2005

The A-M-Zs Of 802.11

Sam Churchill of DailyWireless.Org has a good rundown from sources on the various 802.11 standard extensions - 802.11a through 802.11v in his article 802.11xyz. Sam's article gives links to all the 802.11 working groups (I reference some of them on the sidebar of this weblog).

Googling, I found another good 802.11 rundown at Connect802 "Number Entries" Wi-Fi Dictionary and Encyclopedia which explains the missing 802.11 "L" (it's too potentially confusing with the "11", and explains 802.11 "Z" eloquently:

At present there is no 802.11z standard, either proposed, in a working group, or in draft. A careful search of the IEEE website and the IEEE 802.11 working group website reveals no mention of an 802.11z standard. Unfortunately the world-at-large seems to define "z" as everything from Gigabit wireless to mental telepathy (really.) It may be the case that this general misperception has its roots in a typographic error stemming from 2002. A May 2002 announcement from O'Reilly press contains a typographic error when it states, "Gast tackles these issues and many more in his book. "802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide" also looks forward to the newest developments in wireless networks, including the two new 54 Mbps standards: 802.11z and 802.11g. Of course, the two "new" 54 Mbps standards are 802.11a and 802.11g. It's interesting how "z" and "a" are positioned relative to each other on a QWERTY keyboard. This typographic error appears to have propagated to many reviewers websites across the Internet. A similar typographic error appears in a paper published in the IEEE Journal. The title in the index listing says "z" but the actual PDF of the paper says "a". There is no 802.11z. {By the way, if any of our website readers can contribute information to the contrary we'll salute them in the next monthly issue of the Wireless Connectivity Update newsletter and e-magazine.


By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2005 by Steve Stroh (except for fair use excerpt). Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged.)

Categories:

  • Broadband Wireless Internet Access / Broadband Wireless Access / Wireless Broadband / Wireless Access / Fixed Wireless
  • Outdoor / Long Range / Public Wi-Fi / WiFi / 802.11a / 802.11g / 802.11b
  • Background / History
  • Clueful BWIA-related posting from DailyWireless.Org

Posted by on August 12, 2005 at 21:09 |

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  • About Steve Stroh

    In 1996, I was fascinated to discover that providing Internet Access via license-exempt wireless technologies was not only possible, but being done routinely by a small band of pioneering Internet Service Providers.

    By mid-1997, I was writing professionally about Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) as a monthly columnist in Boardwatch Magazine.

    In 2000, I began writing about BWIA full time in my own blogs, for numerous other publications, and my own subscription newsletter.

    From 2008 - 2015, I took a hiatus from writing about BWIA, but my interest in BWIA did not wane. From 2016 - 2020 I worked to resume writing full time.

    More on my bio page.

    Send me email

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