Certified Wireless Network Administrator

Wireless LAN Infrastructure Devices

Wireless Media

802.11
802.11b
802.11a
802.11g
802.11n
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

License Free Bands

The FCC establishes rules limiting which frequencies wireless LANs can use
and the output power on each of those frequency bands. The FCC has
specified that wireless LANs can use the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical
(ISM) bands, which are license free. The ISM bands are located starting at 902
MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.8 GHz and vary in width from about 26 MHz to 150 MHz.
In addition to the ISM bands, the FCC specifies three Unlicensed National
Information Infrastructure (UNII) bands. Each one of these UNII bands is in
the 5 GHz range and is 100 MHz wide
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards

IEEE 802.11

The 802.11 standard was the first standard describing the operation of
wireless LANs .This standard contained all of the available transmission
technologies including Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS),
Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS), and infrared physical layer.

The IEEE 802.11 standard describes DSSS systems that operate at 1 Mbps and
2 Mbps only. If a DSSS system operates at other data rates as well, such as
1 Mbps, 2 Mbps, and 11 Mbps, then it can still be an 802.11-compliant
system.

IEEE 802.11 is one of two standards that describe the operation of frequency
hopping wireless LAN systems. If a wireless LAN administrator encounters
a frequency hopping system, then it is likely to be either an 802.11-
compliant or OpenAir compliant system.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards

IEEE 802.11b

IEEE 802.11b, referred to as "High-Rate" and Wi-Fi™, specifies direct

sequencing (DSSS) systems that operate at 1, 2, 5.5 and 11 Mbps. The
802.11b standard does not describe any FHSS systems, and 802.11b-
compliant devices are also 802.11-compliant by default, meaning they are
backward compatible and support both 2 and 1 Mbps data rates. The high
data rate of 802.11b-compliant devices is the result of using a different
coding technique.

Though the system is still a direct sequencing system, the way the chips are
coded (CCK rather than Barker Code) along with the way the information
is modulated (QPSK at 2, 5.5, & 11 Mbps and BPSK at 1 Mbps) allows for a
greater amount of data to be transferred in the same time frame. 802.11b
compliant products operate only in the 2.4 GHz ISM band between 2.4000
and 2.4835 GHz.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards

IEEE 802.11a

The IEEE 802.11a standard describes wireless LAN device operation in the 5
GHz UNII bands. Using the UNII bands, most devices are able to achieve
data rates of 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 54 Mbps. Some of the devices
employing the UNII bands have achieved data rates of 108 Mbps by using
proprietary technology, such as rate doubling. The highest rates of some
of these devices are the result of newer technologies not specified by the
802.11a standard. IEEE 802.11a specifies data rates of only 6, 12, and 24
Mbps. A wireless LAN device must support at least these data rates in the
UNII bands in order to be 802.11a-compliant.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards

IEEE 802.11g

IEEE 802.11g specifies operation in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. To achieve the
higher data rates found in 802.11a, 802.11g compliant devices utilize
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation
technology. These devices can automatically switch to QPSK modulation
in order to communicate with the slower 802.11b- and 802.11 compatible
devices. With all of the apparent advantages, 802.11g’s use of the crowded
2.4 GHz band could prove to be a disadvantage. Specially with the fact of
interference possibility between 802.11b DSSS and 802.11g OFDM that
should be resolved with the Protection Mechanism .
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards

10BASE5
802.3 (8)
10Mb/sec, Manchester coded signaling, copper RG-8X (expensive) coaxial cabling, bus topology with collision detection (aka
Thick Ethernet)
10BASE2
802.3 (10)
10Mb/sec, Manchester coded signaling, copper RG-58 (cheap) coaxial cabling, bus topology with collision detection (aka
Thin Ethernet)
Detection
10BASE-T
802.3 (14)
10Mb/sec, Manchester coded signaling, copper twisted pair cabling, star topology - direct evolution of 1BASE-5
FOIRL
Fiber-optic inter-repeater link; the original standard for Ethernet over fiber
10BASE-F
802.3 (15)
(also called 10BASE-FX) -- A generic term for the family of 10 Mbit/s Ethernet standards using fiber optic cable: 10BASE-FL,
10BASE-FB and 10BASE-FP. Of these only 10BASE-FL is in widespread use. 10Mb/sec, Manchester coded signaling, fiber
pair
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards
100BASE-T
A term for any of the three standards for 100 Mbit/s Ethernet over twisted pair cable up to 100 meters long.
Includes 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4 and 100BASE-T2. All of them use a star topology.
100BASE-TX
802.3 (24)
4B5B MLT-3 coded signaling, CAT5 copper cabling with two twisted pairs.
100BASE-T4
802.3 (23)
8B6T PAM-3 coded signaling, CAT3 copper cabling (as used for 10BASE-T installations) with four twisted
pairs (uses all four pairs in the cable). Now obsolete, as Cat-5 cabling is the norm. Limited to half-duplex.
100BASE-T2
802.3 (32)
No products exist. PAM-5 coded signaling, CAT3 copper cabling with two twisted pairs, star topology.
Supports full-duplex. It is functionally equivalent to 100BASE-TX, but supports old telephone cable.
However, special sophisticated digital signal processors are required to handle encoding schemes
required, making this option fairly expensive.
100BASE-FX
802.3 (24)
4B5B NRZI coded signaling, two strands of multi-mode optical fiber. Maximum length is 400 meters for
half-duplex connections (to ensure collisions are detected) or 2 kilometers for full-duplex.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards

1000 Base T
1000BASE-T (also known as IEEE 802.3ab) is a standard for gigabit Ethernet over
copper wiring. It requires, at a minimum, Category 5 cable (the same as
100BASE-TX), but Category 5e ("Category 5 enhanced") and Category 6 cable
may also be used and are often recommended. 1000BASE-T requires all four
pairs to be present and is far less tolerant of poorly installed wiring than
100BASE-TX.

1000 BaseTx
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) created and promoted a
version of 1000BASE-T that was simpler to implement, calling it 1000BASE-TX.
The simplified design would, in theory, have reduced the cost of the required
electronics by only using two pairs in each direction.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards
1000BASE-T
PAM-5 coded signaling, CAT5/CAT5e/CAT6 copper cabling with four twisted pairs (used in both directions)
1000BASE-TX
over only Cat-6 copper cabling. Unimplemented.
1000BASE-SX
8B10B NRZ coded signaling, multi-mode fiber (up to 550 m).
1000BASE-LX/LH
8B10B NRZ coded signaling, multi-mode fiber (up to 550 m) or single-mode fiber (up to 2 km; can be
optimized for longer distances, up to 10 km).
1000BASE-ZX
multi-vendor
over single-mode fiber (up to 100 km). A long-haul solution.
1000BASE-CX
8B10B NRZ coded signaling, balanced shielded twisted pair (up to 25 m) over special copper cable.
Predates 1000BASE-T and rarely used.
1000BASE-BX10
Up to 10km over single strand of single-mode fiber.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

IEEE Standards
10GBASE-SR
802.3ae
designed to support short distances over deployed multi-mode fiber cabling, it has a range of between 26
m and 82 m depending on cable type. It also supports 300 m operation over a new 2000 MHz.km multi-
mode fiber.
10GBASE-LX4
802.3ae
uses wavelength division multiplexing to support ranges of between 240 m and 300 m over deployed multi-
mode cabling. Also supports 10 km over single-mode fiber.
10GBASE-LR
802.3ae
supports 10 km over single-mode fiber
10GBASE-CX4
802.3ak
designed to support short distances over copper cabling, it uses InfiniBand 4x connectors and CX4 cabling
and allows a cable length of up to 15 m.
10GBASE-T
802.3an
Uses unshielded twisted-pair wiring.
1000BASE-?
802.3 HSSG
Higher Speed Study Group. 100 Gb/s up to 100 m or 10 km using MMF or SMF optical fiber respectively
 
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

Optical Fiber

An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along
its length by confining as much light as possible in a propagating form. In fibers
with large core diameter, the confinement is based on total internal reflection. In
smaller diameter core fibers, (widely used for most communication links longer
than 200m) the confinement relies on establishing a waveguide. Fiber optics is
the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with such optical fibers.
Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communication, which permits digital
data transmission over longer distances and at higher data rates than other forms
of wired and wireless communications. They are also used to form sensors, and in
a variety of other applications.  

The term optical fiber covers a range of different designs including

graded-index optical fibers, step-index optical fibers, birefringent
polarization-maintaining fibers and more recently photonic crystal fibers, with the
design and the wavelength of the light propagating in the fiber dictating whether or
not it will be multi-mode optical fiber or single-mode optical fiber.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

Optical Fiber

Multimode & Singlemode Fibers

Multimode & Singlemode fiber are the two types of fiber in common use. Both
fibers are 125 microns in outside diameter - a micron is one one-millionth of a
meter and 125 microns is 0.005 inches- a bit larger than the typical human hair.
Multimode fiber has light traveling in the core in many rays, called modes. It has a
bigger core (almost always 62.5 microns, but sometimes 50 microns ) and is used
with LED sources at wavelengths of 850 and 1300 nm (see below!) for slower local
area networks (LANs) and lasers at 850 and 1310 nm for networks running at
gigabits per second or more. Singlemode fiber has a much smaller core, only
 
about 9 microns, so that the light travels in only one ray. It is used for telephony
and CATV with laser sources at 1300 and 1550 nm. Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) is
large core ( about 1mm) fiber that can only be used for short, low speed networks.
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

Optical Fiber

Connectors and Accessories

An optical fiber connector terminates the end of an optical fiber, and enables
quicker connection and disconnection than splicing. The connector aligns the core
of the two fibers so that light can pass, and provides a mechanical coupling to hold
it together. A variety of optical fiber connectors are available. The main difference
between connectors is in the dimensions and the mechanical coupling.

 
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

Transceivers

 
 Certified Wireless Network Administrator
Wireless LAN Organization & Standards

Optical Fiber

Multimode & Singlemode Fibers

Multimode & Singlemode fiber are the two types of fiber in common use. Both
fibers are 125 microns in outside diameter - a micron is one one-millionth of a
meter and 125 microns is 0.005 inches- a bit larger than the typical human hair.
Multimode fiber has light traveling in the core in many rays, called modes. It has a
bigger core (almost always 62.5 microns, but sometimes 50 microns ) and is used
with LED sources at wavelengths of 850 and 1300 nm (see below!) for slower local
area networks (LANs) and lasers at 850 and 1310 nm for networks running at
gigabits per second or more. Singlemode fiber has a much smaller core, only
 
about 9 microns, so that the light travels in only one ray. It is used for telephony
and CATV with laser sources at 1300 and 1550 nm. Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) is
large core ( about 1mm) fiber that can only be used for short, low speed networks.