IEEE 802.11 (Wireless)

IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of LAN protocols, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer protocols for implementing wireless local area network,

IEEE 802.11 refers to the set of standards that define communication for wireless LANs. The technology behind 802.11 is either frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) or direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) which provides 1 - or 2-Mbps transmission in the 2.4-GHz band.

802.11 is the world's most widely used wireless computer networking standards, used in most home and office networks to allow laptops, printers, and smartphones to talk to each other and access the Internet without connecting wires. They are created and maintained by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

• The protocols are typically used in conjunction with IEEE 802.2, and are designed to internetwork seamlessly with Ethernet, and are very often used to carry Internet Protocol traffic.
• The 802.11 family consists of a series of half-duplex over-the-air modulation techniques that use the same protocol. 
• The 802.11 protocol family employ carrier-sense multiple access with collision avoidance whereby equipment listens to a channel for other users before transmitting each packet.