Inter-Access Point Protocol or IEEE 802.11F is a recommendation that describes an optional extension to

IEEE 802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer commun ...

that provides

wireless access point In computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP), or more generally just access point (AP), is a networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network. As a standalone device, the AP may have a wired ...

communications among multivendor systems.

802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer com ...

is a set of

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

standards that govern wireless networking transmission methods. They are commonly used today in their

802.11a IEEE 802.11a-1999 or 802.11a was an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless local network specifications that defined requirements for an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) communication system. It was originally designed to support ...

802.11b IEEE 802.11b-1999 or 802.11b is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking specification that extends throughput up to 11 Mbit/s using the same 2.4 GHz band. A related amendment was incorporated into the IEEE 802.11-2007 standard. ...

, 802.11g and

802.11n IEEE 802.11n-2009 or 802.11n is a wireless-networking standard that uses multiple antennas to increase data rates. The Wi-Fi Alliance has also retroactively labelled the technology for the standard as Wi-Fi 4. It standardized support for multipl ...

versions to provide wireless connectivity in the home, office and some commercial establishments. The

standard doesn't specify the communications between access points in order to support users roaming from one access point to another and load balancing. The 802.11 working group purposely did not define this element in order to provide flexibility in working with different wired and

wireless distribution system A wireless distribution system (WDS) is a system enabling the wireless interconnection of access points in an IEEE 802.11 network. It allows a wireless network to be expanded using multiple access points without the traditional requirement for a ...

s (i.e., wired backbones that interconnect access points).

Protocol operation

The protocol is designed for the enforcement of unique association throughout an

Extended Service Set In IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networking standards (including Wi-Fi), a service set is a group of wireless network devices which share a ''service set identifier'' (''SSID'')—typically the natural language label that users see as a network ...

and for secure exchange of station's security context between the current Access Point (AP) and the new AP during the handoff period. Based on security level, communication session keys between Access Points are distributed by a

RADIUS In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...

server. The RADIUS server also provides a mapping service between AP's

MAC address A media access control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking tec ...

and

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

Status

The 802.11F Recommendation has been ratified and published in 2003. IEEE 802.11F was a Trial Use Recommended Practice. The IEEE 802 Executive Committee approved its withdrawal on February 3, 2006.802.11 Timelines
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References

External links

Status of the project 802.11f
IEEE Task Group TGf

{{IEEE standards IEEE 802.11

Protocol operation

Status

See also

References

External links