Wireless Networking Flashcards
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Communications Techniques
Wireless communication involves transmitting information via radio waves that move through free space.
Terms:
- Frequency (Hz): of signal indicates how many radio waves travel through a fixed place each second.
- Amplitude (Watts): of a radio signal indicates its power, which in turns dictates how far it can go.
- Wireless Lan (WLAN): uses CSMA/CA (Collision Avoidance)
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Communications Techniques: Spread Spectrum:
- Spread Spectrum means that something is distributing individual signals across the allocated frequencies in some fashion.
- The challenge is how to dynamically allocate individual frequencies to specific sets of transmitters and receivers without them stepping all over each other. This is where Spread Spectrum becomes handy.
- Use case: Communications are used primarily to reduce the effects of adverse conditions such as crowded radio bands, interference, and eavesdropping
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Communications Techniques: Spread Spectrum: Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS)
- Takes the total amount of spectrum and splits it into smaller subchannels.
- The sender and receiver work at one of these subchannels for a specific amount of time and then move to another subchannel.
- The sender puts the first piece of data on one frequency, the second on different frequency, and so on. The FHHS algorithm determines the individual frequencies that will be used and it what order. This referred to as “hop sequence”
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Communications Techniques: Spread Spectrum: Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
- Takes different approach by applying sub-bits to a message.
- The sub-bits are used by the sending system to generate a different format of the data before the data is transmitted.
- The Receiving end uses these sub-bits to reassemble the signal into the original format.
- Sub-bits are called “Chips”
- Sequence of application is referred as “chipping code” (Pseudo-noise sequence)
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Communications Techniques: Spread Spectrum: FHSS vs DSSS
FHSS:
- Uses only a portion of the total spectrum available at any one time.
- Spread signals over a wider frequency band
DSSS:
- Uses all of the available spectrum continuously
- Whereas FHSS uses narrowband carrier that changes frequency across a wide band.
- DSSS has higher data rates than FHSS
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Communications Techniques: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
- This is a multiplexing Technology
- Move even more data than spread-spectrum
- OFDM is a digital multicarrier modulation scheme that compacts multiple modulated carriers tightly together, reducing the required spectrum
- OFDM uses a composite of narrow channel bands to enhance its performance in high-frequency bands.
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Networking Fundamentals -Topologies
- Fundamentally, there are three topologies: Star, Mesh and Point to point.
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Networking Fundamentals: Star Topology
- Star topology is by far the most prevalent because it is used both WLAN and cellular networks. (Layer 3 forward or Layer 2 routing)
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Networking Fundamentals: Mesh Topology:
- Mesh topology is common for low-power devices in close proximity to each other, such as those used in smart homes, as well as in devices that span a large area, such as environmental sensors in wildlife refuges.
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Networking Fundamentals: Point-to-Point Topology
- Point-to-Point wireless topologies are common when connecting buildings as part of MAN.
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Networking Fundamentals: WLAN Components
- Access Point (AP - a transceiver, aka Wireless Access Point (WAP). Connects the wired and the wireless worlds.
- When APs are used to connect wireless and wired networks, this is referred to as an infrastructure WLAN.
- When there is one AP and it is not connected to a wired network, it is considered to be in standalone mode (just act as a wireless hub)
- An Ad-hoc WLAN has no APs, connected via wireless NICs
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Networking Fundamentals: Ad-hoc WLANs vs. Infrastructure WLANs
Ad-hoc WLANs are inherently less secure than Infrastructure WLANs
WIRELESS NETWORKING: Wireless Networking Fundamentals: WLAN Components : Service Set ID (SSID)
Any hosts that whish to participate within a particular WLAN must be configured with the proper Service Set ID (SSID)
WIRELESS NETWORKING: WLAN Standards:
- Standards are developed s that may different vendors can create various products that will work together seamlessly.
- IEEE develop standards, wireless being one of them.
WIRELESS NETWORKING: WLAN Standards:
- 802.11b - WiFi 1 - 11 Mbps - 2.4GHz - DSSS
- 802.11a - WiFi 2 - 54 Mbps - 5.0GHz - OFDM - 25 feet
- 802.11g - WiFi 3 - 54 Mbps -
- 802.11n - WiFi 4 - 100 Mbps - 5.0Ghz - Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO)
- 802.11ac - WiFi 5 - 1.3 Gbps - 5.0Ghz - Multi-User MIMO - Beamforming
- 802.11ax - WiFi 6 - Multi-User OFDM (Doubles the number of streams)
WIRELESS NETWORKING: WLAN - Other Wireless Network Standards: Li-Fi
- Li-Fi is a wireless networking technology that uses light rather than radio waves to transmit and receive data.
- Speed, ubiquity (every where, very common), restricted to an area
WIRELESS NETWORKING: WLAN - Other Wireless Network Standards: 802.16
- IEEE standard 802.16 is a MAN wireless standard that allows for wireless traffic to cover a much wider geographic area.
- 70 Km part
- 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz uses up to 256
- based on WiMAX, replacement for (2G)
WIRELESS NETWORKING: WLAN - Other Wireless Network Standards: 802.15.4
- The IEEE 802.15.4 standard deals with a much smaller geographical network, which is referred to as a wireless personal area network (WPAN)
- This standards defines they Physical layer and Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer of the data link layer.
- Intended to support embedded devices in close proximity to each other
- Industrial (IoT)
- 10m range, 250 Mbps (lower rates 100, 20 10 Kbps)