802.11 Networks

As you learned in Hour 3, “The Network Access Layer,” the details of the physical network reside at the Network Access layer of the TCP/IP protocol stack. The easiest way to imagine a wireless TCP/IP network is simply as an ordinary network with a wireless architecture at the Network Access layer. The popular IEEE 802.11 specifications provide a model for wireless networking at the Network Access layer.

The 802.11 protocol stack is shown in Figure 22.1. The wireless components at the Network Access layers are equivalent to the other network architectures you learned about in previous hours (refer to Figure 2.4). In fact, the 802.11 standard is often called wireless Ethernet because of its similarity and compatibility with the ...

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