Wireless Local Area Network

•Definition of the WLAN

•Global goal of the WLAN
•Advantages of the WLAN.
•Different basic transmission technologies
•Advantages and Disadvantages
 Wireless LAN
• Definition
• A data transmission system designed to provide
location-independent network access between
computing devices by using radio waves rather
than a cable infrastructure .

• The IEEE 802.11 specification as a standard for

wireless LAN’s
 WLAN Advantages
• The global goal
– To replace office cabling, to enable tetherless access to the internet
and, to introduce a higher flexibility for ad-hoc communication in, e.g.,
group meetings.
• Advantages
• Flexibility:
– Within radio coverage, nodes can communicate without further
restriction.
– Radio waves can penetrate the walls
– Sender and receiver can be placed anywhere.
• Planning:
– Only wireless ad-hoc networks allow for communication without previous
planning, any wired network needs wiring plans.
– With wired network, right plugs and probably interworking units (such as
switches) have to be provided.
 WLAN Advantages
• Design:
– Wireless networks allow for the design of small, independent devices
which can for example be put into a pocket.
– Two biggest Threats of Wired Networks
– Cables not only restrict users but also designers of small PDAs, notepads etc.

• Robustness:
– Wireless networks can survive disasters, e.g., earthquakes or users
pulling a plug.

– Cost:
– After providing wireless access to the infrastructure via an access
point for the first user, adding additional users to a wireless network
will not increase the cost.
 Disadvantages
• Quality of service:
– Offer lower quality than their wired counterparts.
• Lower bandwidth due to limitations in radio transmission
• Proprietary solutions
– Due to slow standardization procedures, many companies
have come up with proprietary solutions offering
standardized functionality plus many enhanced features
– Only work in a homogeneous environment
• Restrictions
– WLANs are limited to low-power senders and certain
license-free frequency bands, which are not the same
worldwide.
 Disadvantages
• Safety and security
– More interference with other high-tech equipment e.g.
equipments in the hospitals.
– Radiation has to be low.
– The open radio interface makes snooping much easier in
WLANs than, e.g., in the case of fiber optics.
– All standards must offer encryption, privacy mechanisms,
support for secrecy etc. Otherwise more and more
wireless networks will be hacked
 Improved Design
• Design goals have to be taken into account for WLANs to
ensure their commercial success:
– Global operation:
• National and international frequency regulations have to be
considered.
– Low power:
• Devices communicating via a WLAN are typically also wireless
devices running on battery power.
• Implement special power-saving modes and power management
functions.
– License-free operation
• LAN operators do not want to apply for a special license to be able
to use the product.
• The equipment must operate in a license-free band, such as the
2.4 GHz ISM band.
 Improved Design
• Easy to use
– In contrast to huge and complex wireless WANs, wireless LANs are made for
simple use
– Not require complex management, but rather work on a plug-and-play basis.
• Simplified spontaneous cooperation
– WLANs should not require complicated setup routines but should operate
spontaneously after power-up.
• Protection of investment:
– A lot of money has already been invested into wired LANs.
– The new WLANs should protect this investment by being inter-operable with
the existing networks.
• Safety and security
– Wireless LANs should be safe to operate, especially regarding low radiation if
used, e.g., in hospitals.
– Users should not be able to read personal data during transmission, i.e.,
encryption mechanisms should be integrated.
 Infra red vs radio transmission
• Two different basic transmission technologies
– Used to set up WLANs.
• Infra red
– Uses diffuse light reflected at walls, furniture etc. or
directed light if a line-of-sight (LOS) exists between sender
and receiver.
– Senders can be simple light emitting diodes (LEDs) or laser
diodes.
– Photodiodes act as receivers.
– Main advantages
• Its simple and extremely cheap senders and receivers
• No licenses are needed for infra red technology and shielding is
very simple.
• Electrical devices do not interfere with infra red transmission.
Example of IrDA
 Infra red vs radio transmission
• Infra red Disadvantages
– Its low bandwidth compared to other LAN technologies.
– IrDA devices are internally connected to a serial port
limiting transfer rates to 115 kbit/s.
– Quite easily shielded.
• Infra red transmission cannot penetrate walls or other obstacles.
– Typically, for good transmission quality and high data rates
a LOS, i.e., direct connection, is needed.
 Infra red vs radio transmission
• Radio transmission advantages
– Radio transmission can cover larger areas and can
penetrate (thinner) walls, furniture, plants etc.
– Radio typically does not need a LOS if the
frequencies are not too high.
– Current radio-based products offer much higher
transmission rates (54 Mbit/s)
 Infra red vs radio transmission
• Radio transmission disadvantages
– The main advantage is also a big disadvantage of
radio transmission.
• Shielding is not so simple.
– Interfere with other senders, or electrical devices
can destroy data transmitted via radio.
– Radio transmission is only permitted in certain
frequency bands.
• Very limited ranges of license-free bands are available
worldwide and those that are available are not the same
in all countries.
 Infrastructure and ad-hoc networks
• Infrastructure networks
– Not only provide access to other networks, but also
include forwarding functions, medium access control etc.
– Communication typically takes place only between the
wireless nodes and the access point, but not directly
between the wireless nodes.
 Infrastructure networks
• Access Point
– Most of the network functionality lies within the access
point
• The design of infrastructure-based wireless networks is simpler.
– Recalling the switched Ethernet
• Similar to star-based networks, where a central element (e.g., a
switch) controls network flow.
– Controls medium access
• Collisions may occur if medium access of the wireless nodes and
the access point is not coordinated.
• if only the access point controls medium access, no collisions are
possible.
– This setting may be useful for quality of service guarantees such as minimum
bandwidth for certain nodes.
 Infrastructure based network
• Shortcomings of Infrastructure-based networks
– Lose some of the flexibility wireless networks can offer
• e.g. They cannot be used for disaster relief in cases where no infrastructure is left.
• Example of Infrastructure-based networks
– Typical cellular phone networks are infrastructure-based networks for
a wide area
• E.g. GSM, UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System)
– Also satellite-based cellular phones have an infrastructure – the
satellites
 Ad-hoc wireless networks
• Do not need any infrastructure to work.
– Each node can communicate directly with other
nodes,
• Access point controlling medium access is not essential
• Communication between Nodes
– They are within each other’s radio range
 Ad-hoc wireless networks
• Higher Complexity of each node
– Every node has to implement medium access
mechanisms
– Mechanisms to handle hidden or exposed terminal
problems and priority mechanisms, to provide a
certain quality of service.
– This type of wireless network exhibit the
greatest possible flexibility as it is, for example,
needed for unexpected meetings, quick
replacements of infrastructure or communication
scenarios far away from any infrastructure.
 CSMA/CD works as

– A sender senses the medium to see if it is free.

– If medium is busy then the sender waits until
it is free.
– If medium is free , the sender starts
transmitting data and continues to listen the
medium
– If the sender detects a collision while sending,
it stops at once and send jamming signal.
 Motivation - hidden and exposed terminals
Hidden terminals
 A sends to B, C cannot receive A


 C wants to send to B, C senses a “free” medium (CS

fails)
 collision at B, A cannot receive the collision (CD fails)
 A is “hidden” for C

Exposed terminals
A B C

 B sends to A, C wants to send to another terminal (not A

•

or B)
 C has to wait, CS signals a medium in use
 but A is outside the radio range of C, therefore waiting is
not necessary
 C is “exposed” to B
 IEEE 802.11
• Types
– 802.11b
• 11 Mbps transmission in the 2.4 GHz band.
– 802.11a
• 54 Mbps in the 5GHz band.
– 802.11g
• Offers wireless transmission over relatively short distances at 20 -
54 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band.
– 802.11n
• is a wireless-networking standard that uses multiple antennas to
increase data rates.
• Builds upon previous 802.11 standards by adding MIMO (multiple-
input multiple-output)
• Offers high throughput wireless transmission at 100Mbps – 200
Mbps.
 IEEE 802.11
• System architecture
– Exhibit two different basic system architectures
• Infrastructure-based or
• Ad-hoc .
– Several nodes, called stations (STAi), are connected to
access points (AP).
– Stations are terminals with access mechanisms to the
wireless medium and radio contact to AP
– The stations and the AP which are within the same radio
coverage form a basic service set (BSSi).
– Distribution system
• Connects several BSSs via the AP to form a single network and
thereby extends the wireless coverage area.
• i.e. BSS1 and BSS2
 System Architecture
•An extended service set
(ESS)
•has its own identifier, the
ESSID which is the ‘name’
of a network and is used
to separate different
networks..

•The distribution system

connects the wireless
networks via the APs with
a portal, which forms the
interworking unit to other
LANs.
 System Architecture

• Access Points
– Stations can select an AP and associate with it.
– The APs support roaming (i.e.changing access
points), the distribution system handles data
transfer between the different APs.
– Provide synchronization within a BSS
– Support power management
– Can control medium access to support time-
bounded service.
 Ad-hoc IEEE 80211 System Architecture
• Form one or more independent BSSs (IBSS)
– Ad-hoc networks between stations
• An IBSS comprises a group of stations using the same radio
frequency.
 Protocol architecture
• Scenario :
– An IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN connected to a switched IEEE 802.3
Ethernet
• The WLAN behaves like a slow wired LAN. Consequently, the
higher layers (application, TCP, IP) look the same for wireless
nodes as for wired nodes.
 Protocol architecture
• The IEEE 802.11 standard only covers the physical layer PHY
and medium access control layer MAC
– The physical layer is subdivided into the physical layer convergence
protocol (PLCP)
• Used to indicate data rates and packet length
– The physical medium dependent sub layer PMD
• Define the details of transmission and reception of individual bits on a physical
medium.
• These responsibilities encompass bit timing, signal encoding, interacting with the
physical medium, and the properties of the cable, optical fiber, or wire itself.
 Protocol architecture
• 802.11 Medium Access Control layer
– The basic tasks of the MAC layer
• Medium access,
• Fragmentation of user data, and
• Encryption.
– The MAC management
• supports the association and re-association of a station to an
access point and roaming between different access points.
• controls authentication mechanisms,
• Encryption,
• Synchronization of a station with regard to an access point,
• Power management to save battery power.
 Protocol architecture
• The main tasks of the PHY management
– Channel tuning and PHY MIB maintenance.
• Station management
– Interacts with both management layers
– Responsible for additional higher layer functions.
 Physical layer
• IEEE 802.11 supports three different physical layers
– One layer based on infra red
– Two layers based on radio transmission
• All PHY variants include the provision of the clear channel
assessment signal (CCA).
• Clear channel assessment signal
– Needed for the MAC mechanisms controlling medium access
– Indicates if the medium is currently idle.
• Frequency hopping spread spectrum
– Spread spectrum technique
– Allows for the coexistence of multiple networks in the same
area by separating different networks using different
hopping sequences
 Frequency hopping spread spectrum
• The total available bandwidth is split into
many channels of smaller bandwidth plus
guard spaces between the channels.
• Hopping sequence
– Transmitter and receiver stay on one of the
channels for a certain time and then hop to
another channel.
• Dwell time
– The time spend on a channel with a certain
frequency
Frequency hopping spread spectrum
 Physical layer
• A frame of the physical layer used with FHSS.
– Consists of two basic parts
• The PLCP part (preamble and header)
• The pay-load part.
– Synchronization
• Preamble starts with 80 bit
• Used for synchronization of potential receivers and signal
detection by the CCA.
– Start frame delimiter (SFD)
• 16 bits indicate the start of the frame
• Provide frame synchronization.
 Physical layer
• PLCP_PDU length word (PLW)
– Indicates the length of the payload in bytes.
• PLCP signaling field
– 4 bit field indicates the data rate of the payload following.
– 0000 indicates the lowest data rate of 1 Mbit/s.
– 0010 indicate 2 Mbit/s
– 1111 indicate 8.5 Mbit/s.
• Header error check (HEC)
– The PLCP header is protected by a 16 bit checksum
 Physical layer
• Direct sequence spread spectrum
– Alternative spread spectrum method separating
by code and not by frequency.
– Spreading is achieved using the 11-chip Barker
sequence
– modulation schemes
• For 1 Mbps
– The system uses differential binary phase shift keying (DBPSK)
• For 2 Mbit/s transmission
– differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK)
 Physical layer
• The frame consists of two basic parts, the PLCP part
(preamble and header) and the payload part.
– Synchronization
– Start frame delimiter (SFD)
– Signal
• Originally, only two values have been defined for this field to
indicate the data rate of the payload.
• The value 0x0A indicates 1 Mbit/s (and thus DBPSK),
• The value 0x14 indicates 2 Mbit/s (and thus DQPSK).
– Service
• This field is reserved for future use;
 Bluetooth
• Ad-hoc piconets
– Local area networks with a very limited coverage and
without the need for an infrastructure.
• User scenarios
– Connection of peripheral devices
• Most devices are connected to a desktop computer via wires
• Disadvantages
– Each device has its own type of cable, different plugs are needed, wires block
office space.
• Batteries now have to replace the power supply
 Bluetooth
• Support of ad-hoc networking.
– Scenario:
• Students might join a lecture, with the teacher distributing data to
their personal digital assistants
– Wireless networks can support this type of interaction.
• Small devices might not have WLAN adapters following the IEEE
802.11 standard, but cheaper Bluetooth chips built in.
• Bridging of networks:
– Example
• Using wireless piconets, a mobile phone can be connected to a
PDA or laptop in a simple way.
• Mobile phones will not have full WLAN adapters built in, but could
have a Bluetooth chip.
 Bluetooth
• Architecture
– Bluetooth operates in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.
– Networking
• Bluetooth operates on 79 channels in the 2.4 GHz band
with 1 MHz carrier spacing.
• Each device performs frequency hopping with 1,600
hops/s in a pseudo random fashion.
• A very important term piconet.
– A collection of Bluetooth devices which are synchronized to
the same hopping sequence.
– One device in the piconet can act as master(M).
– All other devices connected to the master must act as
slaves(S).
• Piconet
– Hoping Pattern
• Each piconet has a unique hopping pattern.
• The master determines the hopping pattern in the piconet and the slaves
have to synchronize to this pattern
• If a device wants to participate it has to synchronize to this.
• Each piconet has exactly one master and up to seven simultaneous slaves.
• The reason for the upper limit of eight active devices, is the 3-bit address
used in Bluetooth.
 Networking of Bluetooth devices
• Two additional types of devices are shown:
– parked devices (P) can not actively participate in the piconet (i.e., they
do not have a connection), but are known and can be reactivated
within some milliseconds.
– Devices in stand-by (SB) do not participate in the piconet.
 Bluetooth
• Formation of a piconet
– Rule
• As all active devices have to use the same hopping
sequence they must be synchronized.
– First step
• Involves a master sending its clock and device ID.
• There is no distinction between terminals and base
stations, any two or more devices can form a piconet.
– All Bluetooth devices have the same networking capabilities,
i.e., they can be master or slave.
– Master
» The unit establishing the piconet automatically becomes
the master, all other devices will be slaves.
 Bluetooth
• The hopping pattern is determined by the device ID, a 48-bit
worldwide unique identifier.
• The phase in the hopping pattern is determined by the
master’s clock.
• After adjusting the internal clock according to the master a
device may participate in the piconet.
• Active member address(AMA)
– All active devices are assigned a 3-bit address
• Parked member address(PMA)
– All parked devices use an 8-bit address
• Devices in stand-by do not need an address.
Bluetooth
 Bluetooth
• Scatternet
– Drawback of piconet
• Share the same 1 MHz channel.
• As more users join the piconet, the throughput per user drops quickly
• The idea of forming groups of piconets called scatternet
– The scatternet consists of two piconets, in which one device
participates in two different piconets.
– Both piconets use a different hopping sequence, always determined
by the master of the piconet.
– Bluetooth applies FH-CDMA for separation of piconets.
– A collision occurs if two or more piconets use the same carrier
frequency at the same time
• This will probably happen as the hopping sequences are not coordinated.
– If a device wants to participate in more than one piconet, it has to
syn-chronize to the hopping sequence of the piconet it wants to take
part in.
 Scaternet
• Synchronization
– a slave has to know the identity of the master that determines the hopping sequence of
a piconet.
• Before leaving one piconet, a slave informs the current master that it will
be unavailable for a certain amount of time.
 Scatternet
• A master can also leave its piconet and act as
a slave in another piconet.
• As soon as a master leaves a piconet, all traffic
within this piconet is suspended until the
master returns.
• Possible or not possible
– A master of one piconet to act as the master of
another piconet
 GPRS(General Packet Radio
Service)
• GPRS is a packet-based wireless
communication service.
• It is a 2G technology network that support a
download speed of up to 114Kbps.
• Limitation of GPRS is that GPRS data cannot
be sent while a voice call is in progress.
 EDGE(Enhanced Data GSM Evolution)

• GPRS and EDGE are both 2G technology but

EDGE is significantly faster with a download
speed of up to 384Kbps.
• EDGE is sometimes called a 2.5G network as it
also has some characteristics of a 3G network
but it doesn't satisfy the specification.
 3 Generation(3G)
rd

• Introduction of 3G network made video calling

and seamless streaming of video possible,
with download speed of up to 3.1Mbps.
 HSDPA(High-Speed Down-link Packet Access)

• It is based on the 3G network and an

enhancement to 3G.
• Thus has a faster speed, download speed can
be up to 14Mbps.
• HSDPA is sometimes called 3.5G.
 HSPA+(Evolved High-Speed Packet Access)

• HSPA+ is an evolution HSPA(HSDPA&HSUPA).

• It is a 4G technology that allows download at
a rate of up to 168Mbps.
 4G LTE(Long Term Evolution)

• LTE is a 4G communication standard that

supports HD video streaming, download
speed as high as 299.6Mbps.
 Summary
• GPRS(114Kbps) < EGDE(368Kbps) <
3G(3.1Mbps) < HSDPA(14Mbps) <
HSPA+(168Mbps) < 4G/LTE(299.6Mbps)