Wireless Networking at UF
Wireless Background
There are many types of services that can be described by the term "wireless networking". What we will be discussing is the service specified by the IEEE 802.11b standard. This is not to be confused with the services currently being sold by some cell phone and PDA vendors and labeled as 'wireless internet'. These are cell based services and not compatible with 802.11 standard based systems.
pThere are two basic
types of 802.11b products and they use different transmission technologies.
The first method used is Frequency Hopping (FH). The competing technology
is Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS). For several reasons we
chose the DSSS family of products for deployment at UF. These two
families of products are not compatible so FH based client 
devices
will not work on the UF system. Additionally, a DSSS product should
carry the 'WiFi' logo to insure compatibility with the UF network.
'WiFi' is the label given to describe products that conform to a set of
standards which were drafted by the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance
(WECA) to insure interoperability among vendor products.
p802.11 History
Ethernet has become the predominant LAN technology in the wired world. Defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) with the 802.3 standard, it has provided an evolving, high-speed, widely available and interoperable networking standard. Ethernet originally provided 10 megabit per second (Mbps) transfer rates evolving to include the 155Mbps transfer rates required for network backbones and bandwidth intensive applications.The open IEEE 802.3 standard resulted in a wide range of suppliers, products and price points for Ethernet users. Ethernet standards guarantee interoperability, enabling users to select products from different vendors, reasonably secure that they would work together.
The first wireless LAN technologies operated in the 900MHz band and were low speed (1-2Mbps), proprietary offerings. Despite these shortcomings, the freedom and flexibility of wireless allowed these early products to find there way into vertical markets like retail and warehousing where mobile workforces used hand-held devices for inventory management and data collection.
In 1991 realizing that in order for wireless LANs to gain broad market acceptance, to govern wireless LAN technology Aironet pushed with other wireless makers for standards.
Around 1992, wireless LAN makers began developing products operating in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequency band. This opened two additional vertical markets. Healthcare, with a highly mobile workforce, began using portable computers to access patient information. And as computers made there way into the classrooms, educational institutions began installing wireless networks to avoid the high cost of wiring buildings.
In June, 1997 the IEEE, the body that defined the dominant 802.3 Ethernet standard, released the 802.11 standard for wireless local area networking. IEEE 802.11 standard supports transmission in infrared light and two types of radio transmission within the unlicensed 2.4GHz frequency band: Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS).
Today several 802.11 standards exist. 802.11b is an expansion of the standard that allows transmission speeds of up to 11Mbps. The newer 802.11a and 802.11g versions support speeds as high as 54Mbps.
