Fundamentals of WiFi

CSMA/CD

Why Wireless?

Mobility Simplicity
Wireless eliminates the needs for complex cabling and construction, and installation can take place without taking your cabled network offline, ensuring minimum disruption for employees.

Fexibility

Wireless networks are well suited to many environments. As an extension to a wired network it allows access anywhere within your building. For difficult to cable locations such as heritage buildings or sites where new wiring can't be laid for structural reasons, wireless is ideal. For temporary office connectivity wireless makes sense.

Cost Saving

The initial costs of implementing a wireless LAN compares favourably to traditional cabled networks. ddddd

Wireless design issues

1. RF Quality
On a wired Ethernet, it is reasonable to transmit a frame and assume that the destination receives it correctly Frequency interference Multipath fading Coverage area WiFi has the acknowledgement for each packet.

2. Hidden Node

MAC Access Modes

Distributed co-ordinate Function:

The DCF is the basis of the standard CSMA/CA access mechanism. Like Ethernet, it first checks to see that the radio link is clear before transmitting. To avoid collisions, stations use a random backoff after each frame, with the first transmitter seizing the channel.

Point co-ordinate Function:

Point coordination provides contention-free services. Special stations called point coordinators are used to ensure that the medium is provided without contention. Point coordinators reside in access points, so the PCF is restricted to infrastructure networks. To gain priority over standard contention-based services, the PCF allows stations to transmit frames after a shorter interval

Inter frame spacing(Time parameters)

Short interframe space (SIFS) The SIFS is used for the highest-priority transmissions, such as RTS/CTS frames and positive acknowledgments. PCF interframe space (PIFS) It is used by the PCF during contention-free operation. Stations with data to transmit in the contention-free period can transmit after the PIFS has elapsed and preempt any contention-based traffic. DCF interframe space (DIFS) The DIFS is the minimum medium idle time for contention-based services. Stations may have immediate access to the medium if it has been free for a period longer than the DIFS.

Contention-Based Access

If the medium has been idle for longer than the DIFS, transmission can begin Immediately. If the medium is busy, the station must wait for the channel to become idle. 802.11 If access is deferred, the station waits for the medium to become idle for the DIFS and prepares for the exponential backoff procedure.

General MAC Frame

Address usage

Managment and Control Frames

Data Frames

802.11 State Diagram

Managment Frames

Management Frames

Management Operations
Scanning:
Passive scanning: Station waits for Beacon message of AP for each channel and compile the report after scanning all the channels. Active scanning: Station sends Probe request message for each frequency with supported data rates, the matched APs will provide the Beacon information as Probe Response.

Authentication: Association:

This is prcedure depends on the capabilities of Station and AP. Station provides the required information(Refer management frame slides) to AP. AP will provide assocation ID, which unique number for AP and station communication. AP can also reject the assosication with station with a reason provided in Deassociation frame. Station will send the Re Association when moving from one BSS to other BSS, it will also provide previous AP information. The current may get the data from previous AP.

Power Management

Power management can achieve the greatest savings in infrastructure networks. All traffic for mobile stations must go through access points, so AP is an ideal location to buffer traffic. There is no need to work on a distributed buffer system that must be implemented on every station

PHY Frame

PLCP Preamble: PLCP Header:

Sync bits and start frame detector are the part of the Preamble. Station and AP knew these information, which is used for synchronisation of the frame. Contains the lenth of PHY , MAC header and Data, also contain the rate id for MAC PDU.