The IoT is the driving force behind most wireless technology today. Everything including cars, smart homes, businesses and cities will be connected by the IoT. Plus, an estimated 300 million smartphones are slated to have artificial neural network (ANN) learning capabilities that would enable functions such as navigation, speech recognition and augmented reality.
With all the wireless technology rolling out and market demand for wireless communications applications continuing to grow, the development of different wireless technologies is also exploding to meet that demand. In fact, there are so many new technologies emerging that some directly compete with one another and frequencies overlap.
Many protocols are in accordance with IEEE 802.11 standards. The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee (LMSC) develops the most widely known wired and wireless standards, which encompasses local and metropolitan area networks. The fundamental IEEE standard of 802.11.n had of a minimum of 31 amendments through 2016, with more in the process. These cover everything from Ethernet, wireless LAN, virtual LAN, wireless hot spots, bridging and more.
Other IEEE standards include:
- IEEE 802.15.4 for Simplified Personal Wireless and Industrial Short-Range Links
- IEEE 802.15 Wireless PAN
- IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless (WiMAX)
- IEEE 802.22 for Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN), with base station range to 60 miles
- IEEE 802.23 for Emergency Service Communications
802.11 wireless technology began when the FCC released the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio bands for unlicensed use. The ISM bands were then established in 1974 by the International telecommunication Union (ITU).
These are the frequency allocations as determined by the ITU:
|
Min. Freq. |
Max. Freq |
Type |
Availability |
Licensed Users |
|
6.765 MHz |
6.795 MHz |
A |
Local Acceptance |
Fixed & Mobile Service |
|
13.553 MHz |
13.567 MHz |
B |
Worldwide |
Fixed & Mobile Service except Aeronautical |
|
26.957 MHz |
27.283 MHz |
B |
Worldwide |
Fixed & Mobile Service except Aeronautical & CB |
|
40.66 MHz |
40.7 MHz |
B |
Worldwide |
Fixed, Mobile & Earth Exploration/Satellite Service |
|
433.05 MHz |
434.79 MHz |
A |
Europe |
Amateur & Radiolocation Service |
|
902 MHz |
928 MHz B |
B |
Americas |
Fixed, Mobile & Radiolocation Service |
|
2.4 GHz |
2.5 GHz |
B |
Worldwide |
Fixed, Mobile, Radiolocation, Amateur & Amateur Satellite Service |
|
5.725 GHz |
5.875 GHz |
B |
Worldwide |
Fixed-Satellite, Radiolocation, Mobile, Amateur & Amateur Satellite Service |
|
24 GHz |
24.25 GHz |
B |
Worldwide |
Amateur, Amateur Satellite, Radiolocation & Earth Exploration Satellite |
|
61 GHz |
61.5 GHz |
A |
Local Acceptance |
Fixed, Inter-satellite, Mobile & Radiolocation |
|
122 GHz |
123 GHz |
A |
Local Acceptance |
Earth Exploration Satellite, Inter-Satellite, Space Research |
|
244 GHz |
246 GHz |
A |
Local Acceptance |
Radiolocation, Radio Astronomy, Amateur & Satellite Service |
In addition to IEEE standards, other technologies have broken away from IEEE and made the move to special trade organizations and even changed their names. Plus, there is a slew of short range communications standards vying for dominance, including ANT+, Bluetooth, FirstNet and ZigBee. No matter what your wireless communication application is, rest assured that there are plenty of standards and protocols to refer to when designing your wireless network.
