Asus USB-N10 NANO - Manual (Page 28)

USB-N10 Nano WLAN Adapter User Manual
2 ASUS Wireless-N Adapter
Compared with 802.11g: 802.11a is a standard for access points and radio
NICs that is ahead of 802.11g in the market by about six months. 802.11a operates
in the 5GHz frequency band with twelve separate non-overlapping channels. As
a result, you can have up to twelve access points set to different channels in the
same area without them interfering with each other. This makes access point
channel assignment much easier and significantly increases the throughput the
wireless LAN can deliver within a given area. In addition, RF interference is much
less likely because of the less-crowded 5GHz band.
IEEE 802.11b (11Mbits/sec)
In 1997, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) adopted the
802.11 standard for wireless devices operating in the 2.4 GHz frequency band.
This standard includes provisions for three radio technologies: direct sequence
spread spectrum, frequency hopping spread spectrum, and infrared. Devices that
comply with the 802.11 standard operate at a data rate of either 1 or 2 Mbps.
In 1999, the IEEE created the 802.11b standard. 802.11b is essentially identical
to the 802.11 standard except 802.11b provides for data rates of up to 11Mbps for
direct sequence spread spectrum devices. Under 802.11b, direct sequence devices
can operate at 11Mbps, 5.5Mbps, 2Mbps, or 1Mbps. This provides interoperability
with existing 802.11 direct sequence devices that operate only at 2Mbps.
Direct sequence spread spectrum devices spread a radio signal over a range of
frequencies. The IEEE 802.11b specification allocates the 2.4GHz frequency band
into 14 overlapping operating Channels. Each Channel corresponds to a different
set of frequencies.
IEEE 802.11g
802.11g is a new extension to 802.11b (used in majority of wireless LANs today)
that broadens 802.11b’s data rates to 54 Mbps within the 2.4 GHz band using
OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) technology. 802.11g allows
backward compatibility with 802.11b devices but only at 11 Mbps or lower,
depending on the range and presence of obstructions.
Infrastructure
A wireless network centered about an access point. In this environment, the access
point not only provides communication with the wired network but also mediates
wireless network traffic in the immediate neighborhood.
The 802.11a standard gains some of its performance from the higher frequencies
at which it operates. The laws of information theory tie frequency, radiated power
and distance together in an inverse relationship. Thus, moving up to the 5GHz
spectrum from 2.4GHz will lead to shorter distances, given the same radiated
power and encoding scheme.