8.4.WLAN Standards

• Most modern WLAN standards are variations of the original IEEE 802.11 standard, which was developed in 1997.

• The most popular variants of the 802.11 standard in use today are 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, and 802.11ac.

• Table below acts as a reference to help you contrast the characteristics of the 802.11 standards.

Standard	Band	Max. Bandwidth	Transmission Method	Max. Range
802.11	2.4 GHz	1 Mbps or 2 Mbps	DSSS or FHSS	20 m indoors / 100 m outdoors
802.11a	5 GHz	54 Mbps	OFDM	35 m indoors/ 120 m outdoors
802.11b	2.4 GHz	11 Mbps	DSSS	32 m indoors/ 140 m outdoors
802.11g	2.4 GHz	54 Mbps	OFDM or DSSS	32 m indoors/ 140 m outdoors
802.11n	2.4 GHz or 5 GHz (or both)	> 300 Mbps (with channel bonding)	OFDM	70 m indoors/ 250 m outdoors
802.11ac	5 GHz	> 3 Gbps (with MU-MIMO and several antennas)	OFDM	Similar to 802.11n operating at 5 GHz