802 Wireless Alphabet Soup: What's the Difference Anyway?

Understanding the different extensions on 802 wireless standards. After having read some feature descriptions for wireless networking cards, you may wonder about what the real differences are.
To answer this question, let's now briefly go through the history of wireless networking.

The Beginning: 802.11

802.11 was the name of the first wireless networking standard. No letter followed its name, and was launched in 1997. Today, people prefer to call it legacy 802.11 instead.

At the very beginning, the 802.11 standard was not really popular as it gave manufacturers of wireless equipment many different choices on which parts of the standard to apply. As a result, interoperability became hard to achieve with most users being stuck with one set of wireless devices.

A Breakout Hit: 802.11b

When the standard was modified in 1999, 802.11 changed to 802.11b. This marked the beginning of a new trend. 802.11b updated the standards to reach better interoperability without any major changes. In fact, existing wireless devices were easily upgraded to the new standard allowing 802.11b to quickly spread on the market.

Among the advantages of 802.11b, we have to mention its increased speed, about ten times faster than 802.11 (11Mbps instead of 1Mbps), and its cheaper price. Since people simply adored 802.11b, this is when wireless networking technology started to become more and more popular.

Oops: 802.11a

The a and b standards were first developed to offer some kind of choice to the consumer, with a being faster in exchange for a reduced range. Unfortunately, 802.11a turned out to be a complete failure.

This might have happened because of 802.11a's significant downsides. Yes, it operated at a speed of 54Mbps (almost five times faster than 802.11b), only a clear line of sight between the two wireless devices would make the system work. In addition, 802.11a products started to appear on the market only in 2001, when most people who were already used to 802.11b, didn't like the idea of getting a speed increase in exchange for such a significant range decrease.

Speed With No Downsides: 802.11g

In 2003, after the failure of 802.11a, the 802.11g was created. The aim was to incorporate the best aspects of each standard, combining the speed of 802.11a with the range of 802.11b.

Although it took some time to complete, they managed to come up with the 802.11g devices that run at 54Mbps, but are otherwise the same as 802.11b ones. In addition, 802.11g devices are backwards compatible with 802.11b, which means that they can work together in your network.

What to Choose

Now that you know more about the advantages and disadvantages of everything, what should you choose to turn to wireless networking?

First of all, even if you found one, do not choose legacy 802.11 or 802.11a. There is no point in buying equipment that is incompatible with your other wireless equipment.

So, you now have to decide between 802.11b or 802.11g. If we consider the fact that the majority of broadband connections operate at a speed below that of 802.11b (11Mbps), whichever you choose will not make any major difference to your external Internet access. Where it will count is when you move things around within your network- for instance, sending a file from your laptop to your desktop will take place five times slower with b than it would with g.

Another aspect that might help you decide is the price: b devices are still cheaper than g. Therefore, b devices will work best for you if you're mainly planning to use your wireless network to connect to the Internet. Since many people have upgraded to g without even needing it, you will find a great quantity of cheap but perfectly usable 802.11b wireless equipment on the market.

Here is a tip you might want to follow: buy 802.11b for a lot less and still have your network work just as well as the LAN's that cost a lot more. But if you are really set on the latest, then you will want 802.11g, no doubt about it!

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