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THE
IEEE 802.11 MAC PROTOCOL
Boston University
ENG SC546 A1
FALL 2002
Professor David Starobinski
Project members:
Ervin Kulenica
Chien Pham
ABSTRACT
Over the past few years, wireless communications have become more and more
popular.
One example is mobile phones. Fifty years ago, if you want it to talk
with you friends in California, you have to
sit next to a telephone. That is not
anymore. Nowadays, you can talk with your friends while you are driving. The
same thing is true for computer communications. Wireless telephony has been
successful because it enables
people to connect with each other regardless of
location. This new technology targeted computer networking,
and now the Internet
connectivity is implemented successfully by wireless networking technology. The
most
successful one is the 802.11 wireless LANs.
In 1997, the IEEE adopted the IEEE 802.11 standard which is used for wireless
computer
communications. The IEEE 802.11 defines two layers. The first layer is
the Physical layer (PHY) which specifies
the modulation scheme used and
signaling characteristics for the transmission through radio frequencies. The
second layer is the media access control (MAC). This layer determines how the
medium is used. In this project,
we will not talk about the PHY layer; instead
we will focus on the MAC layer.
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