Today's lesson is about wireless
standards. Wireless standards is
basically the various types of wireless
frequencies you actually get out there.
There are plenty of frequencies, and not
all of them were released at the same
time,
nor are they all used for the same
purposes or even in the same manner. One
thing they all have in common, though, is
the fact that they are all wireless,
obviously.
That and the fact that they all normally
tend to start with 802.11.
You'll notice that whenever we talk
about a wireless frequency, it tends to
start with the numbers 802.11,
and then obviously something after
that .11, which is normally going to be a
letter of some kind. Whatever comes after
the .11, normally tells us which
frequency we're dealing with, and that
will normally be indicated with a letter
or two letters of some kind.
So in a nutshell,
wireless standards are a set of services
and protocols that dictate how your
Wi-Fi network and other wireless
networks actually act.
All right, so
to get you folks started, let's start by
first listing some of the various
wireless standards you actually get. The
first one you get is something called
802.11a.
You see what I mean by the letters.
There's always going to be a letter of
some kind behind the .11. The second
one is something called 802.11b.
The third will be 802.11g.
All of them are going to end with .11,
obviously.
The fourth is 802.11n,
and the fifth on my list is
802.11ac,
and then lastly folks, the sixth one, the
last one is 802.11ax.
So this is the last one, but it's also the
most recent one. So looking at this list
in front of us,
the very first ones I mentioned to you
guys is the very oldest ones, the very
first ones. And if you go down the list,
they become newer and newer, more recent,
and, obviously, faster and faster or at
least in most cases. You'll see what I
mean once we start.
Now like I said earlier, wireless
standards usually start with the numbers
802.11 and then obviously something. You
can probably see now that these
standards listed here are all starting
with those numbers which is, of course,
the 802.11.
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Okay then, so let's have a peek at that
first standard on the list being the
802.11a.
This is actually one of the oldest
wireless standards, which was originally
released in
1999, believe it or not.
This 802.11a standard operates in the 5
gigahertz range and has a speed of 54
megabits per second. You'll still find
this standard being used even today, but
it's not commonly used anymore. So it's
out there, but good luck finding it.
Next up, we've got the 802.11b
standard. This is also one of the oldest
and one of the first I triple E standards that
came out. It was also released in 1999
like the 802.11a, which we mentioned
earlier previously.
Unlike the 802.11a, which operates at a
frequency of 5 gigahertz,
this 802.11b
standard operates at the 2.4 gigahertz
frequency range. It has a much lower
speed of only 11 megabits per second, and
also sadly tends to conflict with a lot
more commonly things out there. So
there's a lot of things out there that
sadly run at the same frequency as this
standard, and that's not always such a
good thing. It's going to cause a lot of
conflict.
It's not uncommon to have things
conflict that run on the same frequency
range, but unfortunately the 2.4
gigahertz range is one of the most
common frequencies which now means
you're going to experience a great deal
of possible conflict.
Just to give you an idea of what I'm
talking about,
other random devices that also operate
at the 2.4 gigahertz range are things
like cordless phones. I'm not talking
about cell phones or mobile devices
folks, I'm talking about those phones
that have a charging base. You'll
normally go and pick them up to make a
phone call or receive a phone call.
They've got like a line plugged into the
charging base. Kind of looks like an old
walkie-talkie if you think about it or
one of the old very first cell phones.
Yeah, one of those.
Those cordless phones run at 2.4
gigahertz.
Other things that also run at 2.4
gigahertz are random things like a
microwave oven. Yes, I'm not kidding folks.
Now with microwave ovens, you'll notice
it's usually only a problem if you
actually turn the microwave on.
If it's just plugged into the wall
socket or the wall plug, and let's say
the LCD display is displaying something
or whatever,
that doesn't normally do anything. It's
only once you actually turn it on to,
let's say, for example, heat something up.
That is when that bad boy runs at 2.4
gigahertz, and that becomes a bit of a
problem. You'll also find that bluetooth
things like wireless Bluetooth headsets
operate at 2.4 gigahertz. Also,
baby monitors, just to name a few.
All of these things I just mentioned are
things that will be a problem if they
were too close to your router or too
close to your access point, which is
operating at this 2.4 gigahertz.
They would basically
cancel each other out if I have to put
it in simple terms.
Please be aware folks, there are
definitely questions in the exam about
this, about what I just mentioned.
These questions are sometimes a little
odd,
but if you understand how these
standards and frequencies operate, the
questions themselves will make sense to
you, and they won't actually seem that
weird to you anymore.
For example, they sometimes like to ask
something weird in the exam along the lines
of
a user, let's say a user has a company or
there's a user at a company, he or she
complains the Wi-Fi at the office keeps
going down during lunch time.
What could be a possible reason for this?
And then in the exam, you'll normally be
presented of four possible answers of
which you can only choose one because
it's mostly going to be multiple
choice questions in the exam.
And you'll notice
one of those four answers is going to be
something along the lines of microwave
oven because it runs at 2.4 gigahertz,
and guess what folks like to do during
lunch time. They like to heat up their
lunch folks, that's what they like to do.
So
yeah, if you understand that these things
run at 2.4 gigahertz, and you understand
that that's something people will do
during lunch time, then you'll understand
the question that's being asked here. So
it's a bit of an odd question, I know, but
I kid you not, that's an actual question
in the exam. Doesn't mean you'll get it, I
mean the pool of amount of questions
that's in the exam, there's many many many of
them. But as long as you understand what
is being asked of you, it doesn't matter
how they ask it, it doesn't matter what
they ask you, you'll get the questions
right. And that's the goal here of this
course.
Anyway folks, moving on to the third one
on our list which is 802.11g.
This is basically a newer version of the
previous 802.11b
we just discussed. It's a
it's an upgrade if you will.
This standard was released in 2003,
unlike the previous two which were
released in 1999.
802.11g
standard operates at the 2.4
gigahertz range, which is the same range
as the 802.11b we literally just
mentioned previously.
So this also means that it's going to
tend to conflict of quite a lot of
things out there from time to time.
Unlike the previous 802.11b standard,
this
newer 802.11g standard runs at a speed
of 54 megabits per second, which
basically matches that of the 802.11a
standard which we mentioned earlier. That
was the very first one on our list. Next
we have the 802.11n
standard. This is basically an update to
the 802.11a,
the 802.11b,
and, of course, the 802.11g
standard. It was released many years
after previous three, coming in at the
year 2009.
This bad boy operates at a frequency
range at 2.4 gigahertz, but
also
at 5 gigahertz. So what I'm saying here
is it's able to operate at both the 2.4
gigahertz as well as the 5 gigahertz
frequency range. You can go and choose
which one you want to go and use
as long as you keep in mind
that there is a difference in speed
sometimes. 2.4 gigahertz can't always go
nearly as fast as 5 gigahertz. 5
gigahertz, because the frequencies at which
it runs and all that, you're able to get
much, much faster speeds out of that,
which brings us to our next bullet point
here. The speeds can be up to
600 megabits per second, but whether
you'll actually get that 600 megabits
per second is going to depend on quite a
lot of things. I mean just to name one,
that depends on the various factors like
the amount of antennas you've got
plugged in. Each antenna will be able to
give you another 150 megabits per second.
So the more antennas you've got, the more
speed you get basically. It's also going
to depend on whether you're running at
2.4 gigahertz or if you're running on
5 gigahertz. So if you want that 600
megabits per second, you're going to have to
get yourself onto the 5 gigahertz
frequency range, and you're going to have to
get yourself up to 4 antennas, yes
folks.
Speaking of antennas, this frequency can
make use of something called MIMO.
So that is multiple-input multiple-output.
So when you have yourself
an access point or a router, and this
thing has multiple antennas, especially
if it's got up to four, you can have
yourself
multiple-input and multiple-output
streams being the MIMO. So you can go and
connect multiple phones, multiple tablets,
multiple laptops, multiple whatever it is,
basically wireless, and using these MIMO
streams, you can go and choose what the
stream speeds are.
So if I want to go and connect a phone, a
phone, for example, doesn't use that much
data, you can give it one stream. If it's
something more resource hungry like a
laptop or what have you, you can go and
connect two, three, or four streams, and
you can give it more bandwidth if that's
what we want to go and call it. So
depending on the device, depending on the
needs of that device, you can give it
more streams, you can give it more
bandwidth. So in a nutshell, what we're
saying here is you've got some sort of
control now as to how much bandwidth and
how much speed
certain devices have when they connect
to your wireless device now. Pretty neat,
right?
All right folks, then we have the fifth
one on that list of ours which is the
802.11ac.
So this
802.11ac standard is also known as
Wi-Fi 5 for the folks that didn't
know that already.
It was released in 2014 which is about
roughly five years after previous
802.11n
standard we just spoke of.
Every couple of years, the I triple E releases
a new standard, so we'll probably be
seeing some new standards being released
again in the near foreseeable future,
maybe in about a year or two from now.
The 802.11ac has
massive speed increases over the 802.11n
standard coming at speeds of up to 7
gigabits per second.
Really fast if you compare it to the
first standards which we literally just
discussed in this list of ours.
This 802.11ac standard operates on the
5 gigahertz frequency range. There is
simply way too much interference and way
too much noise in the other frequencies. So
if we talk about like the 2.4 frequency
range, yeah, there's just way too much
noise. There's way too much going on.
There's way too many devices that's
on that frequency at this point in time.
So it's not uncommon and it's not at all
surprising to see the newer frequencies
trying to move away from the 2.4
gigahertz range just because there's so much
interference. Okay, and then folks the
last wireless standard we had on our
list, the 802.11ax.
So this standard is the latest one out
of all of the ones we've mentioned in
this lesson. It was released as recently
as 2021,
which means it was released during the
pandemic. That's obviously very recently
folks.
This standard is also known as Wi-Fi 6.
The previous one which was the 802.11ac
is, obviously, also known as Wi-Fi 5,
which was already mentioned to you
guys. And then the one before that, which
was the 802.11n, I forgot to mention to
you guys, that's actually also known as
Wi-Fi 4.
So the fourth one was the
n frequency, that's Wi-Fi 4. The fifth
one is the ac frequency, that's Wi-Fi
5.
And
the six one, which was the 802.11ax or
let's just call it the ax frequency, that
is known as Wi-Fi 6. I kid you not.
So yeah, since this Wi-Fi standard is
called Wi-Fi 6 and the previous one
was called Wi-Fi 5, it should come as
no surprise to you that this standard is
the successor to the previous one.
So the 802.11ax standard runs at
both the 2.4 gigahertz and the 5
gigahertz frequency range. And as for its
speed, let's just say it's anywhere from
4 to 10 times faster than the previous
which is insane. What the actual speed is
you get though will obviously depend on
a number of variables which we'll
discuss in a different lesson. But it
basically comes down to things like the
amount of channels you use
and the amount of MIMOs,
that kinds of stuff.
So but yeah, you can get up to speeds to
about 9.6 gigabits per second, 10
gigabits per second, if not more. It's
going to depend on the channels, the
MIMOs, and a whole bunch of variables.
All right folks, let's do a quick summary
of all the wireless standards we
mentioned in this video.
Here I have a table for you which
more or less sums up most of the
important parts you need to know
at least when it comes to writing the
exam that is. I wouldn't say it's
everything you need to know for going
into the field, but from an exam
perspective, this is good enough, this is
all you need to know. There's actually
way, way more that can be said about
these wider standards, but that will be
covered in a different lesson.
Otherwise, this lesson is, obviously, going
to become too long, and we're going to
probably end up mentioning a few things
that might not even be relevant to this
course.
So everything that I'm going to be
mentioning in upcoming lessons is
relevant to the course,
and anything that doesn't need to be
mentioned, I will not mention, you know. So
if it's something extra, I will mention
hey guys, this is something extra so at
least you guys will know. Now, since we
are more or less done with this lesson,
just a bit of an extra few folks, if you
look at the standards on our table here,
the second one from the top there that
ends with b, let's just call it the b
frequency,
that's generally used for things like
Bluetooth in most cases these days. So if
you're using Bluetooth, you know, yeah,
just remember you're actually using the
b frequency, runs at 2.4 gigahertz. The
third one on our list there from the top.
The one ending with the g, let's just
call it the g frequency. That's easily
one of the most common wireless
standards you'll encounter today at the
present moment. So if you go to someone's
home, if you go to the office,
that wireless Wi-Fi connections you guys
normally connect to, guess what? If you go
and check it out, it's normally going to
be the g standard. There are cases where
it's something else, like the a standard.
Yes, believe me or not, it could actually
be the a standard in some cases, but it's
usually going to be the g standard.
We sometimes, in some rare cases, use the
a standard like I just said, but if you
find it being the a standard, it's
normally because the g standard is
interfering or there's some sort of
interference with that standard. So
there's other things running at 2.4
gigahertz in an office environment or
a home environment. That's causing a
bit of a conflict, so the people that
configuring that router or that access
point didn't really have a choice and
they went and switched to the a
frequency. So if you see people using the
a frequency, it might just be because it
could be there's a conflict of some kind.
If you look at the fourth standard error
on our list, that's generally what a lot
of companies have been using to connect
their offices and their branches to one
another
wirelessly over distances. Usually
it's over great distances, but it's not
limited to great, it could be a short
distance. This is now obviously changing
with the new ac and the new ax that is
being released, so it's becoming more and
more common to see companies use the ac
and the ax standards instead of the n
standard when it comes to connecting
buildings and branches and stuff
wirelessly over great distances and, of
course, over great speeds. So basically
the n standard is usually used to
connect things over great distances but
also over pretty decent speeds.
The downside to this bad boy is it needs
line of sight. Real deal breaker actually.
So the top three wireless standards on
our list there, top three, those are
obviously the oldest ones, but those bad
boys don't actually need line of sight.
If you just get near enough of them, you
know, if you are within range, well, there
you go. But if you look at the bottom
three there, those are faster
over greater distances, but they need
line of sight. Really sucks, doesn't it?
Anyway folks, I hope you've learned
something in this lesson. If you have, do
me a solid and give the video a like.
And if you like, if you'd like to follow
the course or any of my other courses
quite frankly, remember to subscribe,
otherwise you might miss it.
Lastly folks, before we call it, just a
shout out to the channel sponsors. So
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All right folks, talk to you in lesson 18
of the CompTIA Network+ course.
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