802.11 Families Of Wi-Fi Standards: History, Functionality, And Security

Wireless Technology and Data Transmission

WIFI is a well-known wireless technology that is used for transmitting the data (Sadowski and Spachos 2020). It is used to transmit more than 50 per cent of the user traffic. Cellular technologies switching from 4G to 5G almost every decade helps the WIFI users increase their transmission of data rates and introduce new features and services. The evolution of cellular technologies has increased the transfer of data rates from 2Mbps to 10 Gbps in the latest 802.11ax (Khorov, Levitsky and Akyildiz 2020). In addition, the expansion of WIFI also includes several functional projects such as WIFI are also used in IoT (Internet of Things). It can also support data rates up to 275Gbps at a minimal cost. It also has its uses in Augmented Reality (AR). Gaming and other cloud computing services.

The paper includes the historic background of the 802.11 families of Wi-Fi standards. It also discusses the functional and security aspect of the 802.11 families of Wi-Fi standards.

In 1970, the initial Wireless network was developed to transfer data without using any cable wire (Khara and Priyadarshini). However, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in the year 1991 started discussing the standardizing WLAN technologies. In 1997, the IEEE sanctioned the initial 802.11 standards. It is known as WI-FI.

In the year 1999, the Wireless technology was brought to the public. The 802.11a and b were allowed to be used by the public. These 802.11a and b standards had very data rates. Generally, it had up to 20Mbps of data rates. At that time, there were few laptops and cellular devices to use it. Thus, the standards of data rates were ok for that time. However, in 2003, many mobile devices were introduced in the market to use WIFI. These devices became popular among businesses and individuals. Thus, 802.11g was sanctioned to deliver the data rates 54Mbps in 2.4GHz of space (Rebhi, Barrak and Menif 2019). In 2007, the smartphone came into the market and with this came 802.11n. The 802.11n could transfer the data rates at 450Mbps and supported both 2.4GHz and 5GHz devices.

There are several factors of the 802.11 families of Wi-Fi standards. These are shown below:

1. 11ah – It refers to the Wi-Fi HaLow (Tian et al. 2021). It defines the operation of a license-exempt network in the frequency band up to 900MHz. The frequency band varies in different countries. The main objective of the 802.11 ah is to make a range of WIFI of Wi-Fi networks that goes beyond the normal scope of 2.4GHz and 5GHz space. It allows the transmission of data rates up to 347 Mbps. In addition, the main aim of this standard is to have less energy consumption and be useful for IoT devices.
2. 11ad – It got its approval in December 2012. This standard is very fast as compared to other measures. It can provide transfer of data rates at 6.7Gbps across 60Hz frequency. The only limitation of this standard is that the speed of data rates comes with the distance. The receiver must be within 11 feet of AP.
3. 11ac (Wi-Fi 5) – It is generally used as a home wireless router (Choi et al. 2019). It can operate at 5 GHz of the frequency band. This standard includes Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO). This is the reason; it utilizes multiple antennas for sending and receiving devices for reducing the error and enhance its speed. It can support the data rates up to 3.46 Gbps.
4. 11n (Wi-Fi 4) – It got its approval in October 2009. It can operate at both 2.4Ghz and 5GHz of frequency band, with speeds up to 600Mbps (Pandey et al. 2019). The term dual-band refers to the delivery of data across two frequencies, that is, 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
5. 11g – It was approved in June 2003. It can transfer the data rates at 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz band (Alpman et al. 2018). The data rates are similar to 802.11a but with a less frequency range.
6. 11a – It was approved in June 1997. It has data rates up to 54mbps in the 5GHz frequency band. This standard came later than 802.11b, creating confusion in the marketplace because of the letter “a” at the end.
7. 11b – It was released in September 1999. It used a home router that operates at 2.4GHz frequency as well as provides the data rate of 11 Mbps. It was brought into the marketplace before 802.11a.
8. 11-1997 – It was the first standard of 802.11 families that provided the data rates up to 2 Mbps at the 2.4GhZ frequency band. It has a range of approx. 330 feet indoors. Thus, it can cover the whole house.
9. 11aj – It got approval in November 2017. It is also known as China Millimetre Wave. It is the modified version of the 52.11ad physical layer as well as MAC layer. It is used to enable operations in the China 59-64GHz frequency band. The main objective of this standard is to maintain backward compatibility with 80211ad, which can be operated at the range of 60GHz band.
10. Wi-Fi 6E – It is the extension of WIFI 6. It allows the Wi-Fi connection to broadcast over the 6GHz band. Wi-Fi 6E can create new 80MHz channels and seven 160 MHz channels (Naik and Park, 2021). This will increase the network capacity channels for the user. The user in densely populated areas will have substantially more bandwidth, reducing Wi-Fi interference. It can be said that Wi-Fi 6E can drastically increase the amount of space available for the Wi-Fi connection.

Several security features are there of 802.11 standards, which need to have a secure wireless network. These are Service Set Identifier (SSID), the Access Control List (ACL), and the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP).

1. Service Set Identifiers (SSID) – To control the wireless network access, the security’s SSID level was introduced. It is the first level provided by the 802.11 standards. The SSID is the unique identifier of up to 32-character attributes to a network or domain (Abed and Abdel-Qader 2019). All wireless clients and access points must have the same network. The Service Set Identifiers act as a password device whenever a wireless client attempts to connect with the AP to connect with the network. Compared with other existing features, the Service Set Identifiers mechanism is compulsory and can not be disabled. The manufacturer of 802.11 devices provides a default unique identifier value.
2. Access Control List (ACL) – The Access Control List is used to monitor the access to the wireless network. The network administrator has the power to only allow or deny access to the access point. This can be done by configuring the Access Control List on the Access Point itself. To authenticate the user client requesting for access to the access point, the ACL is dependent on the MAC addresses for it (Wakabayashi, Kotani and Okabe, 2020). The addresses table of MAC is stored on the Access Point to authenticate these individuals. Thus, the Access Control List is used to prevent the unauthorized access to the Access Point. Compared with the SSID, ACL is not mandatory but an optional feature.
3. Wired Equivalent Protocol (WEP) – The Wired Equivalent Protocol was introduced to have a similar level of security as the wired network has. This Protocol uses encryption to protect the wireless Communication and blocks the unauthorized access to the wireless network(Valle and Alonso 2022). Both the authentication and encryption mechanism depend on the secret key shared among the mobile stations and the Access Point. The Wired Equivalent Protocol is not mandatory. It is optional to use. And a wireless device can have one or both of the features of Wired Equivalent Protocol.

Encryption – In Wired Equivalent Protocol, the data is encrypted with the help of the Ron Rivest Code 4 (RC4). In the year 1987, it was developed for the RSA data security. The main objectives are to protect, secure and provide secure communication and integration among two or more computing devices. Wired Equivalent Protocol is also used to protect the wireless traffic by randomly generating 24-bit initialization vector. The WEP encryption process is shown below:

Figure: WEP encryption process

The figure above shows that the 40-bit shared secret key is connected with a 24-bit secret key. This 24-bit secret key is randomly generated. The security of the Initialization vector is enhanced with the introduction of cryptographic variance to the initial shared private key. To create an encryption, key a new 64-bit key is seeded into the RC4 algorithm. With the facilitation of the cyclic Redundancy Check-32 algorithm, an entity check is performed. This is used to protect the data from being modified. Using keystream, the plain text is encrypted. The mathematical XOR function is used to get the ciphertext. Then, the encoded output is sent to transmission using the initialization vector that is attached to the ciphertext. The user will have to reverse these steps to get the original data or decrypt the cipher text.

History of 802.11 Families of Wi-Fi Standards

Authentication – The authentication mechanism can be defined as using the same shared secret key for encrypting the data. There are two ways to perform authentication. These are as follows:

1. Open system authentication – Open system authentication is used as a default authentication method. The mechanism of Open system authentication is shown below:

Figure: Open system Authentication

Here, the station inclined to connect with the network transmits the authentication request, and the access point will read the shared secret key and respond to the request either positively or negatively. Open system authentication is called null authentication as neither the nether client nor the AP can authenticate each other. This mechanism is not efficient for the wireless networks that care for their data security.

1. Shared key authentication – In contrast with open system authentication, the shared key authentication needs to have a WEP in its process. It used a shared secret key which is defined at each station.

Figure: Shared Key Authentication

The figure above shows that the wireless device transmit an authentication request to the AP.

The Access Point will send a randomly generated text using 128-bit authentication. After getting the randomly generated text, the device will then encrypt the text with the help of a secret key as well as then will send it back to the AP. The AP will share its private key to compare the challenge text sent by the wireless device. If both texts are identical, AP will return a message showing the wiring device is genuine. If the text is not similar, AP will send negative message and will then deny the connection to the device.

Conclusion

Wireless Communication is an application that has become essential for modern existence. From radio and telephones to current smartphones and laptops, accessing the global network has become a critical part of our lifestyle. A wireless LAN is a system used to transmit data among the computing device independent of the medium. Communication is generally made through radio waves. The 802.11 is a family of Wi-Fi standards developed by the IEEE. It supports all the radio transmission within the 2.4GHz band. The evolution of cellular technologies has increased the transfer of data rates from 2Mbps to 10 Gbps in the latest 802.11ax. In addition, the growth of WIFI also includes several functional projects such as WIFI are also used in IoT (Internet of Things).

References

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