STANDARDIZATION OF WIRELESS LAN MESH NETWORKS IN IEEE 802.11s
Shah Rahman · Auerbach Publications eBooks · 2006
One of the technologies that may change our lives most over the next few years is wireless mesh networking (WMN). Wireless mesh technologies have been around almost as long as wireless local area networks (WLANs) have, but they could never take the wireless industry by storm as they have in recent times. As the popularity of WMNs is growing, end users are demanding higher bandwidth, greater coverage, and improved reliability. To date, there is no official standard for WMNs. However, a fertile field for standards to emerge has been created with market demands and industry interests. The industry has come together at various IEEE 802 workgroups to standardize WMNs with the right ingredients and framework. These standards may fuel widespread adoption of WMNs around the world. This chapter examines the standardization activities of WLAN mesh networking Task Group at IEEE code-named 802. 11s for amendments to the IEEE 802.11 base standard. WLAN mesh networking has been the forerunner in topic research, product development, and network deployment of wireless mesh. At the time of writing this chapter, the Task Group has created a baseline draft based on mandatory WLAN mesh requirements, followed by more advanced and optional features. The roadmap ahead is to develop a full, official extended service set (ESS) mesh standard within the next 2 y [1].