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Enterprising AP: Page 5 of 5

Jesse Lindeman is a research associate at the Center for Emerging Network Technologies at Syracuse University. Write to him at [email protected].

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Pros and Cons of 802.11g

802.11g is essentially an amalgamation of the two leading wireless LAN technologies: 802.11b and 802.11a. 802.11g operates in the same 2.4-GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band used by 11b, but employs the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) coding technique of 11a to reach a 54 Mbps maximum theoretical data rate. Backward compatibility with 802.11b clients is achieved through 11g's ability to understand and transmit using CCK (Complimentary Code Keying), the coding scheme of 11b. It is from this backward compatibility with 11b that 802.11g's issues with performance and deployment arise.

The 802.11g standard is relegated to the interference-ridden 2.4-GHz band so that microwaves, cordless phones and Bluetooth devices can wreak havoc on the wireless segment. Operating in this frequency also means that 11g administrators are kept to the three nonoverlapping channels 11b uses--five short of what 11a administrators have to play with. The trade-offs for backward compatibility extend to performance as well; 11g's ability to accommodate 11b clients slows aggregate throughput because of the increased overhead associated with being able to communicate with clients of both 2.4-GHz standards.