802.11 - Legacy

Yesterday we talked about the wireless concepts (See the post Basic Wireless Concepts) in that post I mentioned the wireless standards but did not go further into detail.

This post one of the five standards that make up the 802.11. The 802.11 – Legacy has its called now and is not in use anymore by manufactures and is now obsolete was the first wireless standard available for consumer laptops.

When the 802.11 - Legacy came out in 1997 you could expect speeds up to 2 megabits per second (Mbit/s) This standard was replaced quickly when 802.11b was released. The legacy standard range was about 70 feet indoors and around 330 feet outdoors at the time that was huge! Currently the 802.11 legacy standard is the only standard that used the Frequency-hopping spread spectrum.

What this means is the device would switch frequencies to a different channel at random. This helped the signals become harder to intercept. The obsolete standard also could use the Direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) which had the benefits of Resistance to jamming, you could share the signal channel among other users, it reduced the signal and noise level which helped in interception. Although this standard is not in use anymore you could say that the wireless explosion was on the way and this is what started it.

Check back tomorrow and I'll be posting the 802.11a standard. I hope this information was informative and let me know if you have any ideas on the next topic I should do that deal with any ICND1 and ICND2 material.