WIRELESS LANs

By : najwa rashid

ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking 1

 Learning Objectives

 To understand the fundamentals of wireless LANs.

 To explain the IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth technologies.
 To compare two type of wireless LAN technology
 To setup a wireless LAN based on IEEE 802.11

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ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking 3
ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking 4
 Outlines

Architecture
MAC
IEEE 802.11 Sublayer
Addressing
WLAN Mechanism
Physical
layer

Bluetooth

Bluetooth
layer

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 Introduction

 No cables are needed

 Fastest growing technologies
 Two popular wireless technologies: IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth

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 IEEE 802.11

 Known as Wireless Ethernet

 Cover data link and physical layers
 Defines two types of services : Basic Service Set (BSS) and Extend Service Set (ESS)

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 IEEE 802.11 : Architecture

 BSS is made of stationary

or mobile wireless station
and possible central base
station known as access
point (AP).
 A BSS without an AP is
called an ad hoc network;
a BSS with an AP is called
an infrastructure network

Figure 10.1 Basic service sets (BSSs)

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 IEEE 802.11 : Architecture

 An ESS is made up of two or more BSSs with APs.

The BSSs are connected through a distribution
system which is usually a wired LAN.
 It uses two types of stations: mobile and stationary.
The mobile are normal stations inside BSS and
stationary station are AP stations.

ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking

Figure 10.2 Extended service sets (ESSs) 9
 IEEE 802.11 : Type of Station

No - Transition BSS - Transition ESS – Transition

Mobility Mobility Mobility
• Stationary • Can move from • Can move from
• Moving inside a one BSS to one ESS to
BSS only another. another.
• However, the
movement is
confined inside
one ESS.

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 IEEE 802.11 : MAC Sublayer

 IEEE 802.11 defines two

MAC sublayers: the
distributed coordination
function (DCF) and point
coordination function
(PCF)

Figure 10.3 MAC layers in IEEE 802.11 standard

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 IEEE 802.11 : Frame Format

 It consists of nine
fields.
 Frame Control (FC):
defines type of frame
and some of control
information.
 D: defines duration of
transmission
 Addresses
Figure 10.4 Frame format
 Frame body.
 FSC : CRC

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 IEEE 802.11 : Type of Frames

Management Frame: used for the initial communication between stations and access points

Control Frame: used for accessing the channel and acknowledging frame

Data Frame: used for carrying data and control information

Figure 10.5 Control frames

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 IEEE 802.11 : Addressing Mechanism

• The IEEE 802.11 addressing

mechanism specifies four
cases, defined in the FC field,
To DS and From DS.
• Address 1 is address of next
device. Address 2 is address of
previous device. Address 3 is
address of final destination Table 10.1 Addresses
station if it is not defined by
address 1. Address 4 is address
of original source station if it is
not same as address 2.

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 Addressing Mechanism
• 00 (To DS = 0 and From DS = 0)
• The frame is going from one station in a BSS to another. The ACK frame should be
Case 1 sent to the original sender

• 01 (To DS = 0 and From DS = 1)

• The frame is coming from an AP and going to a station. The ACK should be sent to AP
Case 2

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 • 10 (To DS = 1 and From DS = 0)
Case 3 • The frame is going from a station to an AP. The ACK is sent to the original station

• 11 (To DS = 1 and From DS = 1)

Case 4 • The frame is going from one AP to another AP in a wireless distribution system.

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16
 Hidden Station Problem

• Station B and station C

have different range.
• Every station is located in
the range can listen to
any transmitted signal.
• Station C is outside the
transmission range of B.
• Station B is out of range
of C.
• Station A, is in the area
covered by B and C. So,
it can listen to any signal
transmitted by B or C.
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 Handshaking to prevent hidden station problem

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 Exposed Station Problem

• Station A is transmitting data

to station B.
• Station C has data to be
sent to station D.
• Station C is exposed to
transmission from station A.

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 Use of handshaking in exposed station problem

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 Physical Layer

ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking

Table 10.2 Physical layers 21
 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

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 Architecture: Piconet

• Bluetooth defines two types of

network: piconets and scatternet.

• Piconets can have up to 8 stations,

one of which is called primary and
the rest are called secondary
• Although a piconet can have a
maximum of seven slaves, an
additional eight slaves can be in the
parked state.

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 Architecture: Scatternet

• Scatternet is a
combination of
piconets.
• Secondary station
in one piconet can
be primary in
another piconet

24
ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking
 Layers

• Bluetooth uses several

layers that do not
exactly match those of
the Internet model.
The layers are radio,
baseband, L2CAP and
others

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RADIO LAYER

• Roughly equivalent to the physical layer of the Internet

model
• Bluetooth devices are low-power and have a range of
10 m
• Bluetooth uses the frequency-hopping spread spectrum
method
• Each device uses a frequency for only 625 us before it
hops to another frequency
• Bluetooth uses a sophisticated version of FSK called
GFSK (FSK with Gaussian bandwidth filtering)

10.26
BASEBAND LAYER
• This layer is roughly equivalent to the MAC sublayer in
LANs
• The primary and secondary communicate each other
using time slots
• The length of a time slot is 625 us and the
communication is only between the master and a slave
• Bluetooth uses a form of TDMA that called TDD-TDMA
(time-division duplex TDMA)
• TDD-TDMA is a kind of half-duplex communication in
which the secondary and receiver send and receive data,
but not at the same time;
10.27
 Single-Secondary Communication

• If the piconet has only

one secondary, the time
is divided into slots of
625 us. The primary
uses even-numbered
slots and the salve uses
odd-numbered slots.
• In slot 0, the primary
sends, the secondary
receives. In slot 1, the
secondary sends, the
primary receives. The 28
cycle is repeated. ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking
 Multiple-Secondary Communication
• If the piconet has more than one secondary, the process is little more
complex
• Again, the primary uses the even-numbered slots, but a secondary sends
in the next odd-numbered slot if the packet in the previous slot was
addressed to it.
• All secondaries listen to on even-numbered slots, but only one secondary
sends in any odd-numbered slot
• Figure 10.23
1. In slot 0, the primary sends a frame to secondary 1
2. In slot 1, only secondary 1 sends a frame to primary because the previous
frame was addressed to secondary 1; other secondaries are silent
3. In slot 2, the primary sends a frame to secondary 2
4. In slot 3, only secondary 2 sends a frame to the primary because the
previous frame was addressed to secondary 2; other secondaries are silent
5. The cycle continues
10.29
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Physical Links

• Two types of links can be created between primary and secondary:

SCO links and ACL links
• SCO
A synchronous connection-oriented (SCO) link is used when avoiding
latency (delay in data delivery) is more important than integrity
(error-free delivery)
• ACL
An asynchronous connectionless link (ACL) is used when data
integrity is more important than avoiding latency

10.31
 Frame Format

• A frame in the baseband layer can be

one of three types: one-slot, three-
slot or five-slot
• In one-slot, 259 us is needed for
hopping and the length of the frame
is 366 bits.
• In three-slot frame and five-slot, 259
us is also needed for hopping but the
length is 1616 bits and 2866 bits
respectively
• The format of the three frame types
consist of three fields: access code, 32
header and payload ITT400: Introduction to Data Communication and Networking
 L2CAP

• The logical link control and adaptation protocol (L2CAP) is roughly

equivalent to the LLC sublayer in LANs.
• The format of data packet consist of three fields: length (defines size of
data), channel ID (defines a unique identifier) and data and control field.
• The L2CAp has several specific duties: multiplexing, segmentation and
reassembly, quality of service and group management

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