Chapter 15

Wireless LANs

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

14-1 IEEE 802.11

IEEE has defined the specifications for a wireless LAN, called IEEE 802.11, which covers the physical and data link layers.

Topics discussed in this section:

Architecture MAC Sublayer Physical Layer
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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Architecture The standard defines two kinds of services: the basic service set (BSS) and the extended service set (ESS). Basic Service Set
Building block of a wireless LAN. Made of stationary or mobile wireless stations and an optional central base station, known as the access point (AP). BSS without an AP is a stand-alone network and cannot send data to other BSSs ad hoc architecture. A BSS with an AP = infrastructure network.
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Note

A BSS without an AP is called an ad hoc network; a BSS with an AP is called an infrastructure network.

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Figure 14.1 Basic service sets (BSSs)

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Extended Service Set
Made up of two or more BSSs with APs. BSSs connected through a distribution system, usually wired LAN.
IEEE801.22 does not restrict the distribution system : it can be any IEEE LAN such as Ethernet. Uses mobile and stationary stations. Mobile are normal stations inside a BSS. Stationary stations are AP stations that are part of a wired LAN. When BSSs are connected, the stations within range of one another can communicate without the use of a AP. Communication between two stations in two different BSSs usually occurs via two APs. Mobile station can belong to more than one BSS at the same time. 14.6

Figure 14.2 Extended service sets (ESSs)

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14-1 IEEE 802.11 Station Types

IEEE 802.11 defines three types of stations based on their mobility in a wireless LAN: no-transition, BSS-transition, and ESS-transition mobility.
A station with no-transition mobility is either stationary or moving only inside a BSS. A station with BSS-transition mobility can move from one BSS to another, but movement confined inside one ESS. A station with ESS-transition mobility can move from one ESS to another IEEE 802.11 does not guarantee that communication is continuous during the move.

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

MAC Sublayer
IEEE 802.11 defines two MAC sublayers: the distributed coordination function (DCF) and point coordination function (PCF). Distributed Coordination Function
Uses CSMA/CA as access method. Wireless LANs cannot implement CSMA/CD for three reasons.
1. For collision detection a station must be able to send data and receive collision signals at the same time. This can mean costly stations and increased bandwidth requirements. Collision may not be detected because of hidden station problem. Distance between stations can be great signal fading could prevent a station at one end from hearing a collision at the other end.

2. 3.

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Figure 14.3 MAC layers in IEEE 802.11 standard

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Figure 14.4 Process flowchart for CSMA/CA as used in wireless LANs.

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Frame Exchange Timeline
1. Before sending a frame, source station senses the medium by checking the energy level at the carrier frequency.
Channel uses a persistence strategy with back-off until channel idle. Stations waits for distributed interframe space (DIFS), then sends RTS.

2. After receiving the RTS and waiting period of time (short interframe space [SIFS]), destination station sends CTS. 3. Source station sends data after waiting time = SIFS. 4. Destination station after waiting time = SIFS, sends an acknowledgement to show that frame has been received. Network Allocation Vector
When station sends a RTS it includes duration of time it needs to occupy channel. Other affected stations create a timer network allocation vector (NAV) which shows how much time must pass before these stations are allowed to check the channel for idleness 14.12

Figure 14.5 Exchange of data and control frames in time CSMA/CA and NAV

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Point Coordination Function
Optional access method in an infrastructure network. Implemented on top of DCF and mostly used for time-sensitive transmission.
Uses centralized, contention-free polling access method. AP performs polling Priority given to PCF over DCF another set of IFS has been defined : PIFS (PCF IFS) and SIFS. PIFS shorter than DIFS. IF at same time a station wants to use DCF and an AP wants to use PCF, the AP has priority. To ensure that stations that only use DCF gain access to medium - use a repetition interval to cover both contention-free and centention-based traffic. Repetition interval starts with a special control frame called beacon frame When stations hear beacon frame, they start their NAV for the duration of the contention-free period of the repetition interval. At end of contention-free period, PC sends a CF end frame to allow contention-based stations to use medium.

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Figure 14.6 Example of repetition interval

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Fragmentation
Wireless environment very noisy: corrupt frame has to be retransmitted. Fragmentation : division of large frame into smaller ones. More efficient to resend a small frame.

Frame Format
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. MAC sublayer frame consists of nine fields Frame Control (FC) Duration (D) Four address fields Sequence control (SC) Frame body CRC-32 bit error detection sequence : FCS.

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Figure 14.7 Frame format

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Table 14.1 Subfields in FC field

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Frame Types
Wireless LAN has three categories of frames: 1. Management Frames: used for initial communication between stations and access points. 2. Control frames: used for accessing the channel and acknowledging frames 3. Data frames: used for carrying data and control information.

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Figure 14.8 Control frames

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Table 14.2 Values of subfields in control frames

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Addressing Mechanism
IEEE 802.11 addressing mechanism specifies four cases:
1. Case 1:00 frame not going to distribution system and not coming from distribution system. Frame going from one station in BSS to another without passing through the distribution system. Case 2: 01 frame coming from a distribution system, i.e. frame coming from AP and going to a station. Case 3:10 frame going to distribution system, i.e. frame going from station to AP Case 4: 11 distribution system also wireless. Frame going from AP to another AP in wireless distribution system.

2. 3. 4.

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Table 14.3 Addresses

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Figure 14.9 Addressing mechanisms

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Hidden Station Problem
Station out of transmission range of another station. One station in range of both stations - can hear any signal transmitted by two stations. Two stations out of range try to send data to a station within range of both of them. Collision at middle station. Hidden stations reduce capacity of network because of the possibility of collision. Solution use handshake frames (RTS and CTS).

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Figure 14.10 Hidden station problem

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Note

The CTS frame in CSMA/CA handshake can prevent collision from a hidden station.

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Figure 14.11 Use of handshaking to prevent hidden station problem

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14-1 IEEE 802.11

Exposed Station Problem

Station refrains from using a channel when it is available. Station exposed to transmission from another station when it can send to a different station. Wastes capacity of channel. Handshaking messages (RTS and CTS) cannot help. Station cannot hear CTS because collision with data from other station.

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Figure 14.12 Exposed station problem

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Figure 14.13 Use of handshaking in exposed station problem

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14-1 IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer

Six specifications. All implementations except infrared operate in industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band defines three unlicensed bands in the three ranges 902-928 MHz, 2.4-4.835 GHz, and 5.725-5.85GHz. IEEE 802.11 FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) Uses the 2.4GHz ISM band IEEE 802.11 DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) Uses the 2.4GHz ISM band IEEE 802.11 Infrared Uses infrared light in range 800 to 950 nm. IEEE 802.11 OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) All sub-bands used by one source at a given time. IEEE 802.11b DSSS High-rate direct sequence spread spectrum method for signal generation in 2.4 GHz ISM band. IEEE 802.11g New specification defines forward error correction and OFDM using 2.4 GHz ISM band 14.32

Table 14.4 Physical layers

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Figure 14.14 Industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band

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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 ad hoc network, which means that the network is formed spontaneously.
Topics discussed in this section:
Architecture Bluetooth Layers Baseband Layer L2CAP
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14-2 BLUETOOTH
Architecture Bluetooth defines two types of networks: piconet and scatternet. 1. Piconet Eight stations maximum, one called primary, others secondary. Communication between primary and secondary one-to-one or one-to-many. 2. Scatternet Piconets combined to form scatternet Secondary station in one piconet can be primary in another piconet

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Figure 14.19 Piconet

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Figure 14.20 Scatternet

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14-2 BLUETOOTH
Bluetooth Layers
Bluetooth layers do not match Internet model. 1. Radio Layer
Equivalent to physical layer. Low power and range of +- 10m. Band: 2.4 GHz ISMband divided into 79 channels of 1 MHz each. FHSS: Avoid interference with other devices. Uses frequency of 625 microseconds before hops to another frequency. Modulation: Uses GFSK

2. Baseband layer
Equivalent to MAC layer. Access method TDMA half-duplex communication. Primary uses even numbered slots, secondary oddnumbered slots.

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Figure 14.21 Bluetooth layers

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Figure 14.22 Single-secondary communication

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Figure 14.23 Multiple-secondary communication

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Figure 14.24 Frame format types

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Figure 14.25 L2CAP data packet format

Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP ) equivalent to LLC sublayer. Used for data exchange on an asynchronous connectionless link (ACL)

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