Wireless LANs
■ Wireless communication is one of the
fastest-growing technologies.
■ The demand for connecting devices without the use
of cables is increasing everywhere.
■ Wireless LANs can be found on college campuses,
in office buildings, and in many public areas.
■ There are two promising wireless
technologies for LANs:
■ IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs, sometimes called
wireless Ethernet
■ Bluetooth, a technology for small wireless
LANs.
14.3
IEEE 802.11
IEEE has defined the specifications for a wireless
LAN, called IEEE 802.11
Topics discussed in this section:
Architecture
MAC Sublayer
Architecture
■ The IEEE 802.11 standard defines two kinds of
architecture services:
Basic service set (BSS)
Extended service set (ESS).
Basic Service Set (BSS)
■ IEEE 802.11 defines the Basic Service Set
(BSS) as the building block of a wireless
LAN.
■ A Basic Service Set is made of mobile
wireless stations and an optional central base
station, known as the Access Point (AP).
■ A BSS without an AP is called an adhoc
network ; a BSS with an AP is called an
infrastructure network.
Note
A BSS without an AP is called an ad hoc
network;
a BSS with an AP is called an
infrastructure network.
Basic service sets (BSSs)
Extended Service Set
■ An extended service set (ESS) is made up of two or
more BSSs with APs.
■ In this case, the BSSs are connected through a
distribution system, which is usually a wired LAN.
■ The distribution system connects the APs in the
BSSs.
■ Note that the extended service set uses two types of
stations: mobile stations and stationary stations.
■ The mobile stations are normal stations inside a
BSS.
■ The stationary stations are AP stations that are part
of a wired LAN.
Figure 14.2 Extended service sets (ESSs)
■ When BSSs are connected, the stations within
reach of one another can communicate
without the use of an AP.
■ However, communication between two
stations in two different BSSs usually occurs
via two APs.
14.11
MAC Sub layer
■ IEEE 802.11 defines two MAC sub layers:
Distributed Coordination Function (DCF)
Point Coordination Function (PCF).
■ Figure below shows the relationship between
the two MAC sub layers, the LLC sub layer,
and the physical layer
MAC layers in IEEE 802.11 standard
Distributed Coordination Function
■ One of the two protocols defined by IEEE
802.11 at the MAC sub layer is called the distributed
coordination function (DCF). DCF uses CSMA/CA
as the access method.
■ DCF requires a station wishing to transmit to listen
for the channel status for a DIFS interval.
■ In a network where a number of stations contend
for the wireless medium, if multiple stations sense
the channel busy and defer their access, they will
also virtually simultaneously wait for the channel
become idle and then try to seize the channel.
■ As a result, collisions may occur.
■ In order to avoid such collisions, DCF also
specifies random back off, which forces a
station to defer its access to the channel for
an extra period.
■ DCF also has an optional virtual carrier sense
mechanism that exchanges short Request-to-send
(RTS) and Clear-to-send (CTS) frames between
source and destination stations during the intervals
between the data frame transmissions.
■ DCF includes a positive acknowledge
scheme, which means that if a frame is
successfully received by the destination it is
addressed to, the destination needs to send an
ACK frame to notify the source of the
successful reception
Point Coordination Function (PCF).
■ The point coordination function (PCF) is an
optional access method that can be implemented in
an infrastructure network.
■ It is implemented on top of the DCF and is use
mostly for time-sensitive transmission.
■ PCF has a centralized, contention-free polling
access method. The AP performs polling for stations
that are capable of being polled. The stations are
polled one after another, sending any data they have
to the AP.
IEEE 802.11 frame format
■ Frame control field: The FC field is 2 bytes
long and defines the type of frame and some
control information.
■ Duration field. This field is usually of 2 bytes
and defines the duration of the transmission
time of frame in micro seconds.
Addresses
■ There are four address fields, each 6 bytes
long. The meaning of each address field are
■ Address 1 always refers to the address of next
device .
■ Address 2 always refers to the address of
previous device
■ Address 3 always refers to the address of final
destination
■ Address 4 always refers to the address of
source
■ Sequence control. This field defines the
sequence number of the frame to be used in
flow control.
■ Frame body(data). This field, which can be
between 0 and 2312 bytes, contains
information based on the FC field.
■ FCS. The FCS field is 4 bytes long and
contains a CRC-32 error detection sequence.
Types of frames
■ A wireless LAN defined by IEEE 802.11 has
three categories of frames:
■ Management frames
■ Control frames
■ Data frames.
Management Frames
■ Management frames are used for the initial
communication between stations and access
points.
■ Functions of this of frames are
Request
Response
Authentication
Re association
Control Frames
■ Control frames are used for sending and
acknowledging frames.
Request To Send
Clear To Send
Ack
Data Frames
Data frames are used for carrying actual data
14-2 BLUETOOTH
Bluetooth is a wireless LAN technology designed to
connect devices of different functions such as telephones,
notebooks, computers, cameras, printers, coffee makers,
and so on.
A Bluetooth LAN is an adhoc network, which means that
the network is formed spontaneously.
Topics discussed in this section:
Architecture
Bluetooth Layers
14.25
Architecture
■ Bluetooth defines two types of networks:
Piconet
Scatternet
piconet
■ A Bluetooth network is called a piconet, or a small
net.
■ A piconet can have up to eight stations, one of which
is called the primary; the rest are called secondaries.
■ All the secondary stations synchronize their clocks
with the primary.
■ Note that a piconet can have only one primary
station.
■ The communication between the primary and the
secondary can be one-to-one or one-to-many.
Piconet
14.28
Scatternet
■ Piconets can be combined to form what is called a
scatternet.
■ A secondary station in one piconet can be the
primary in another piconet.
■ This station can receive messages from the primary
in the first piconet (as a secondary) and, acting as a
primary, deliver them to secondary's in the second
piconet.
■ A station can be a member of two piconets
Scatternet
14.30
