The Need for Wireless Standards and Protocols

The Need for Wireless Standards and Protocols 

Bo Sun

CIS 513: Wireless Computing

Strayer University

P. A. White, Ph.D.

May 1, 2013

Organizations

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sets the standard authority of telecommunications in the United States. The field includes not only wireless network, but also contains radio signal, telephone and television service, and Internet access like cable and DSL. In the wireless area, FCC sets the standard rules for hardware like antennas, and the transmission techniques like radio frequencies and power settings. FCC restricts that all current wireless hardware in the US must follow the safety guidelines which has a radiation exposure limitation. And at the same time, FCC also has its own status for the generated RF and microwave radiation. Major RF transmitting facilities under the jurisdiction of the FCC, such as radio and television broadcast stations, satellite-earth stations, experimental radio stations and certain cellular, PCS and paging facilities are required to undergo routine evaluation for RF compliance whenever an application is submitted to the FCC for construction or modification of a transmitting facility or renewal of a license (Wireless Technology).

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has great influence on the wireless standards. IEEE provides 802.11 standard which used for wireless LAN which is the foundation standard for devices vendors. 802.11 standards set the status of the frequencies and bands which could be used in the WLANs. It is designed to deal with physical and data link layer issues. The initial 802.11 use FHSS. At the same time, IEEE also involve in setting security standard used in wireless network. In 1997, IEEE initially revealed its WLANs security standard—Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). WEP supports authentication and encryption services for original 802.11. It could only provide weak secure service because of the static pre-shared key. And...