The IEEE 802 Plenary Session runs all week in Dallas. Starting today, the IEEE Pleanary Session will bring the major 802 committees together to spur international standardization in a variety of 802 groups including:

• 802.11 Wireless LAN Working Group (wikipedia): The IEEE develops open, leading-edge consensus standards for Wireless Local Area Networks (Wireless LANs), Wireless Personal Area Networks (Wireless PANs), and Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (Wireless MANs). It includes an alphabet soup of Wi-Fi standards from 802.11a though 802.11y.
• 802.15 Wireless PAN Working Group: It includes a variety of subgroups including; TG3c, a millimeter-wave-based alternative physical layer (PHY) for the existing 802.15.3 Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) Standard (802.15.3-2003), TG4a, a Low Rate alternative for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs), TG4b, enhancements and clarifications to the IEEE 802.15.4-2003 standard, TG5, chartered to determine the necessary mechanisms that must be present in the PHY and MAC layers of WPANs to enable mesh networking, and SCwng, a Standing Committee chartered to facilitate new Wireless technologies that may be subject for new 802.15TG standardization projects. An amendment to add support for the 950 MHz band in Japan is being considered by the group.
• 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access Working Group (wikipedia): 802.16 Session #46 has a busy week (calendar). An possible update to the WirelessMAN-OFDMA air interface in accordance with next generation mobile networks such as IMT-Advanced will be considered. The P802.16m PAR Proposal would specify 1 Gbit/s data rate in low mobility applications and 100 Mbit/s in high-speed mobility applications.
• 802.17 Resilient Packet Rings (wikipedia): RPR is used in Local, Metropolitan, and Wide Area Networks for resilient and efficient transfer of data packets at rates scalable to many gigabits per second. The group is considering a Spatially aware sublayer.
• 802.18 RR-TAG (wikipedia): Monitoring of, and active participation in, ongoing radio regulatory activities, at both the national and international levels, are an important part of LMSC’s work.
• 802.19 Co-Existence: It defines the responsibilities of 802 standards and address issues of coexistence with existing standards.
• 802.20 Wireless Mobility (wikipedia): The goals of 802.20 and 802.16e, the so-called “mobile WiMAX” standard, are similar. A draft 802.20 specification was balloted and approved on January 18th, 2006. On 15 September 2006, the IEE-SA Standards Board approved a plan to enable the IEEE 802.20 Working Group to move forward with its work to develop a mobile broadband wireless access standard and provide the best opportunity for its completion and approval.
• 802.21 Media Independent Handover (wikipedia): The standard provides information to allow handing over to and from cellular, GSM, GPRS, WiFi, Bluetooth and 802.11 networks through different handover mechanisms.
• 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) (wikipedia): The Standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRAN) uses a Cognitive Wireless RAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications for operation in the TV Band. Fixed point-to-multipoint radios will utilize UHF/VHF TV bands between 54 and 862 MHz.

Bob O’Hara led the team that wrote the 802.11 standard, which was created by the IEEE to govern wireless networking. He got involved with developing the wireless standards in the early 1990s while working in the high-speed networks division of microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices.

We’ll keep our ear to the ground this week and post any interesting news we come across.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 6:16 pm.