Wireless Standards - Network+ (N10-008)

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

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All right folks, talk to you in lesson 18

of the CompTIA Network+ course.

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