CWNA Guide to Wireless

LANs, Second Edition

Chapter Four
IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Standards
 Objectives
• List and describe the wireless modulation schemes
used in IEEE WLANs
• Tell the difference between frequency hopping
spread spectrum and direct sequence spread
spectrum
• Explain how orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing is used to increase network throughput
• List the characteristics of the Physical layer
standards in 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a
networks

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 2

 Introduction

Figure 4-2: OSI data flow

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 3
 Introduction (continued)

Table 4-1: OSI layers and functions

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 Wireless Modulation Schemes
• Four primary wireless modulation schemes:
– Narrowband transmission
– Frequency hopping spread spectrum
– Direct sequence spread spectrum
– Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
• Narrowband transmission used primarily by radio
stations
• Other three used in IEEE 802.11 WLANs

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 5

 Narrowband Transmission
• Radio signals by nature transmit on only one radio
frequency or a narrow portion of frequencies
• Require more power for the signal to be transmitted
– Signal must exceed noise level
• Total amount of outside interference
• Vulnerable to interference from another radio signal
at or near same frequency
• IEEE 802.11 standards do not use narrowband
transmissions

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 6

 Narrowband Transmission (continued)

Figure 4-3: Narrowband transmission

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 Spread Spectrum Transmission

Figure 4-4: Spread spectrum transmission

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 Spread Spectrum Transmission
(continued)
• Advantages over narrowband:
– Resistance to narrowband interference
– Resistance to spread spectrum interference
– Lower power requirements
– Less interference on other systems
– More information transmitted
– Increased security
– Resistance to multipath distortion

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 9

 Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum
(FHSS)
• Uses range of frequencies
– Change during transmission
• Hopping code: Sequence of changing frequencies
– If interference encountered on particular frequency
then that part of signal will be retransmitted on next
frequency of hopping code
• FCC has established restrictions on FHSS to
reduce interference
• Due to speed limitations FHSS not widely
implemented in today’s WLAN systems
– Bluetooth does use FHSS

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 10

 Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum
(continued)

Figure 4-6: FHSS error correction

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 Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
(DSSS)
• Uses expanded redundant code to transmit data
bits
• Chipping code: Bit pattern substituted for original
transmission bits
– Advantages of using DSSS with a chipping code:
• Error correction
• Less interference on other systems
• Shared frequency bandwidth
– Co-location: Each device assigned unique
chipping code
• Security
CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 12
 Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
(continued)

Figure 4-7: Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) transmission

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 Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM)
• With multipath distortion, receiving device must
wait until all reflections received before transmitting
– Puts ceiling limit on overall speed of WLAN
• OFDM: Send multiple signals at same time
– Split high-speed digital signal into several slower
signals running in parallel
• OFDM increases throughput by sending data more
slowly
• Avoids problems caused by multipath distortion
• Used in 802.11a networks
CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 14
 Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (continued)

Figure 4-8: Multiple channels

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 Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (continued)

Figure 4-9: Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)

vs. single-channel transmissions
CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 16
 Comparison of Wireless Modulation
Schemes
• FHSS transmissions less prone to interference
from outside signals than DSSS
• WLAN systems that use FHSS have potential for
higher number of co-location units than DSSS
• DSSS has potential for greater transmission
speeds over FHSS
• Throughput much greater for DSSS than FHSS
– Amount of data a channel can send and receive

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 17

 Comparison of Wireless Modulation
Schemes (continued)
• DSSS preferred over FHSS for 802.11b WLANs
• OFDM is currently most popular modulation
scheme
– High throughput
– Supports speeds over 100 Mbps for 802.11a WLANs
– Supports speeds over 54 Mbps for 802.11g WLANs

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 18

IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Standards
• IEEE wireless standards follow OSI model, with
some modifications
• Data Link layer divided into two sublayers:
– Logical Link Control (LLC) sublayer: Provides
common interface, reliability, and flow control
– Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer: Appends
physical addresses to frames

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 19

IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Standards
(continued)
• Physical layer divided into two sublayers:
– Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) sublayer:
Makes up standards for characteristics of wireless
medium (such as DSSS or FHSS) and defines
method for transmitting and receiving data
– Physical Layer Convergence Procedure (PLCP)
sublayer: Performs two basic functions
• Reformats data received from MAC layer into frame
that PMD sublayer can transmit
• “Listens” to determine when data can be sent

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 20

 IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Standards
(continued)

Figure 4-10: Data Link sublayers

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 IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Standards
(continued)

Figure 4-11: PHY sublayers

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 IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Standards
(continued)

Figure 4-12: PLCP sublayer reformats MAC data

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 IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Standards
(continued)

Figure 4-13: IEEE LANs share the same LLC

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 Legacy WLANs
• Two “obsolete” WLAN standards:
– Original IEEE 802.11: FHSS or DSSS could be used
for RF transmissions
• But not both on same WLAN
– HomeRF: Based on Shared Wireless Access
Protocol (SWAP)
• Defines set of specifications for wireless data and
voice communications around the home
• Slow
• Never gained popularity

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 25

 IEEE 802.11b Physical Layer
Standards
• Physical Layer Convergence Procedure
Standards: Based on DSSS
– PLCP must reformat data received from MAC layer
into a frame that the PMD sublayer can transmit

Figure 4-14: 802.11b PLCP frame

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 26
 IEEE 802.11b Physical Layer
Standards (continued)
• PLCP frame made up of three parts:
– Preamble: prepares receiving device for rest of
frame
– Header: Provides information about frame
– Data: Info being transmitted
• Synchronization field
• Start frame delimiter field
• Signal data rate field
• Service field
• Length field
• Header error check field
• Data field
CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 27
 IEEE 802.11b Physical Layer
Standards (continued)
• Physical Medium Dependent Standards: PMD
translates binary 1’s and 0’s of frame into radio
signals for transmission
– Can transmit at 11, 5.5, 2, or 1 Mbps
– 802.11b uses ISM band
• 14 frequencies can be used
– Two types of modulation can be used
• Differential binary phase shift keying (DBPSK): For
transmissions at 1 Mbps
• Differential quadrature phase shift keying
(DQPSK): For transmissions at 2, 5.5, and 11 Mbps
CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 28
 IEEE 802.11b Physical Layer
Standards (continued)

Table 4-2: 802.11b ISM channels

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 IEEE 802.11b Physical Layer
Standards (continued)

Table 4-3: IEEE 802.11b Physical layer standards

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 IEEE 802.11a Physical Layer
Standards
• IEEE 802.11a achieves increase in speed and
flexibility over 802.11b primarily through OFDM
– Use higher frequency
– Accesses more transmission channels
– More efficient error-correction scheme

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 31

 U-NII Frequency Band

Table 4-4: ISM and U-NII WLAN characteristics

Table 4-5: U-NII characteristics

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 U-NII Frequency Band (continued)
• Total bandwidth available for IEEE 802.11a
WLANs using U-NII is almost four times that
available for 802.11b networks using ISM band
• Disadvantages:
– In some countries outside U.S., 5 GHz bands
allocated to users and technologies other than
WLANs
– Interference from other devices is growing
• Interference from other devices one of primary
sources of problems for 802.11b and 802.11a
WLANs

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 33

 Channel Allocation

Figure 4-16: 802.11a channels

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 Channel Allocation (continued)

Figure 4-17: 802.11b vs. 802.11a channel coverage

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 Error Correction
• 802.11a has fewer errors than 802.11b
– Transmissions sent over parallel subchannels
– Interference tends to only affect one subchannel
• Forward Error Correction (FEC): Transmits
secondary copy along with primary information
– 4 of 52 channels used for FEC
– Secondary copy used to recover lost data
• Reduces need for retransmission

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 36

 Physical Layer Standards
• PLCP for 802.11a based on OFDM
• Three basic frame components: Preamble, header,
and data

Figure 4-18: 802.11a PLCP frame

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 Physical Layer Standards (continued)

Table 4-6: 802.11a Rate field values

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 Physical Layer Standards (continued)
• Modulation techniques used to encode 802.11a
data vary depending upon speed
• Speeds higher than 54 Mbps may be achieved
using 2X modes

Table 4-7: 802.11a characteristics

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 39
 Physical Layer Standards (continued)

Figure 4-19: Phase shift keying (PSK)

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 Physical Layer Standards (continued)

Figure 4-20: Quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK)

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 Physical Layer Standards (continued)

Figure 4-21: 16-level quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM)

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 Physical Layer Standards (continued)

Figure 4-22: 64-level quadrature amplitude modulation (64-QAM)

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 IEEE 802.11g Physical Layer
Standards
• 802.11g combines best features of 802.11a and
802.11b
• Operates entirely in 2.4 GHz ISM frequency
• Two mandatory modes and one optional mode
– CCK mode used at 11 and 5.5 Mbps (mandatory)
– OFDM used at 54 Mbps (mandatory)
– PBCC-22 (Packet Binary Convolution Coding):
Optional mode
• Can transmit between 6 and 54 Mbps

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 44

 IEEE 802.11g Physical Layer
Standards (continued)

Table 4-8: IEEE 802.11g Physical layer standards

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 45
 IEEE 802.11g Physical Layer
Standards (continued)
• Characteristics of 802.11g standard:
– Greater throughput than 802.11b networks
– Covers broader area than 802.11a networks
– Backward compatible
– Only three channels
– If 802.11b and 802.11g devices transmitting in same
environment, 802.11g devices drop to 11 Mbps
speeds
– Vendors can implement proprietary higher speed
• Channel bonding and Dynamic turbo

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 46

 Summary
• Three modulation schemes are used in IEEE
802.11 wireless LANs: frequency hopping spread
spectrum (FHSS), direct sequence spread
spectrum (DSSS), and orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM)
• Spread spectrum is a technique that takes a
narrow, weaker signal and spreads it over a
broader portion of the radio frequency band
• Spread spectrum transmission uses two different
methods to spread the signal over a wider area:
FHSS and DSSS

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 47

 Summary (continued)
• OFDM splits a single high-speed digital signal into
several slower signals running in parallel
• IEEE has divided the OSI model Data Link layer
into two sublayers: the LLC and MAC sublayers
• The Physical layer is subdivided into the PMD
sublayer and the PLCP sublayer
• The Physical Layer Convergence Procedure
Standards (PLCP) for 802.11b are based on DSSS

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 48

 Summary (continued)
• IEEE 802.11a networks operate at speeds up to 54
Mbps with an optional 108 Mbps
• The 802.11g standard specifies that it operates
entirely in the 2.4 GHz ISM frequency and not the
U-NII band used by 802.11a

CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs, Second Edition 49