
Chapter 3
3.2 Primer on the 802.11 Standard
3.2.1 Introduction
Before we delve into the specifics of roaming within 802.11 WLANs, we will provide a brief
review of the basic mechanisms used within 802.11 that permit controlled sharing of an
802.11 RF channel among a number of user Stations (STAs). (Recall that in the cellular world
we used the acronym MS to denote a Mobile Station.) During this introductory discussion, we
focus on how access is shared between many user stations and a single access point. We do
not deal with multiple access points in the same network until Section 3.4.
Certain 802.11 management frames are especially crucial to a basic ...