Rating: 
Summary: The best reference in this field till now
Review: It is organized well according to the IEEE 802.11 version of 1999. The concept of WLAN is clarified clearly.
But the content of 802.11a seems lacking for a better understanding. Several chapters introducing the products from vendors are useless to me.
I hope the next edition will give more description on 802.11a, 11e and 11g.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Comprehensive; Valiant Effort.
Review: Recently I've been designing a system to run atop 802.11b radios and this book has served as an excellent introduction to the 802.11b standard. For example, Gast's description of spread-spectrum radios, chipping, and OFDMA radio systems is a broad overview without going into excessive mathematical formulas and it gives a non-RF engineer a basic understanding of what are the issues underlying each of the 802.11 radios of today.I found myself reading a chapter of this book, and then looking at the 802.11b standard itself (now available free on the website ieee.org) for more detailed information. I found only a couple of minor errors in this book. This book serves as an outstanding introduction to the protocol standard, which is large and which contains little or no practical information for the practitioner. However, I did also use Radia Perlman's book on Routing in conjunction with this book to help me understand IEEE 802.1 issues. Gast attempts to be a be-all and end-all book for everyone. For example, he attempts to describe all 802.11 RF modulation schemes. He attempts to give a full description of all the packet formats. He attempts to describe which cards are based on which baseband (Intersil or Orinoco). This stuff is changing very fast but he gave it his best shot, and its very important to people installing *NIX drivers. He attempts to tell you how to set up an 802.11 Ethereal packet sniffer. All of his information is invaluable to anyone setting up 802.11b on any flavor of UNIX or Linux. Anyway, he makes a really valiant effort and I've never seen a networking book try to play in all 4 spaces at once - RF Theory, Network Protocols, Hardware Selection, and Practicum - all at the same time. He should be applauded for this attempt. I have not found a book that is nearly as comprehensive (6/2003) and I've lent this book to at least 5 other people, most of them PhD's or VP's in EE or CS and/or wireless communications.
Rating:
Summary: Very Comprehensive; Valiant Effort.
Review: Recently I've been designing a system to run atop 802.11b radios and this book has served as an excellent introduction to the 802.11b standard. For example, Gast's description of spread-spectrum radios, chipping, and OFDMA radio systems is a broad overview without going into excessive mathematical formulas and it gives a non-RF engineer a basic understanding of what are the issues underlying each of the 802.11 radios of today. I found myself reading a chapter of this book, and then looking at the 802.11b standard itself (now available free on the website ieee.org) for more detailed information. I found only a couple of minor errors in this book. This book serves as an outstanding introduction to the protocol standard, which is large and which contains little or no practical information for the practitioner. However, I did also use Radia Perlman's book on Routing in conjunction with this book to help me understand IEEE 802.1 issues. Gast attempts to be a be-all and end-all book for everyone. For example, he attempts to describe all 802.11 RF modulation schemes. He attempts to give a full description of all the packet formats. He attempts to describe which cards are based on which baseband (Intersil or Orinoco). This stuff is changing very fast but he gave it his best shot, and its very important to people installing *NIX drivers. He attempts to tell you how to set up an 802.11 Ethereal packet sniffer. All of his information is invaluable to anyone setting up 802.11b on any flavor of UNIX or Linux. Anyway, he makes a really valiant effort and I've never seen a networking book try to play in all 4 spaces at once - RF Theory, Network Protocols, Hardware Selection, and Practicum - all at the same time. He should be applauded for this attempt. I have not found a book that is nearly as comprehensive (6/2003) and I've lent this book to at least 5 other people, most of them PhD's or VP's in EE or CS and/or wireless communications.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of Substance Poorly Written
Review: The author, Matthew Gast, seems to have a dearth of relevant experience on 802.11. His bio in the back of the book (and on O'Reilly's website) gives no single specific experience - academic, professional, or otherwise - he had relating to 802.11. The bio instead is left to boast that Gast is a "renaissance technologist" and a "voracious reader on science and economics". I find it telling that the publishers spent more space discussing the design of the book's cover than on Gast's bio. If you don't know a subject well, you'll have a difficult time teaching it to others, and that appears to be the case here. I noticed that Gast wrote other networking books for O'Reilly, so I assume he's their go-to guy on networking. Why they would do that on a hot subject like 802.11 is a mystery, and it produced a poorly written mess. As for the book, it appears that he researched as much substance on 802.11 and haphazardly threw it together. The flow of the book is atrocious and seems poorly planned. For example, he advises readers to skip more than half the middle of the book and come back to it later if necessary since he feels it may be too complicated for most. Why not put that portion of the book at the end, or better yet, write clearly enough so that it's not too complicated? This is an 802.11 book, after all. He also spends the first two chapters explaining the most rudimentary details of wireless networks, yet expects the reader to be well versed in Ethernet. If Ethernet is so vital to understanding 802.11, why didn't Gast devote a chapter as an Ethernet primer, especially since he found it compelling to include two chapters of the most basic of wireless network primers? His clarity is also awful. The book is very dense with acronyms and technical terms. This isn't a problem in itself, but the glossary only defines acronyms. You're left searching the text for the definition to other terms, if they're even defined therein. Even if they are defined, don't expect a clear definition. For example, "atomic operation" (granted, it's a simple term, but that makes for an even better example) should have been defined with something like "an atomic operation is a unitary action that is essentially indivisible, unchangeable, whole, and irreducible." Gast never says anything of the sort and chooses instead to give an example of two nodes in a network communicating an acknowledgement of a received frame to each other and then says "[The example] is an atomic operation". The index then refers to atomic operation as being defined by the above line. The reader is therefore forced back to the bad example. What aspect of the communication does atomic operation refer to for the naive reader? I already knew what "atomic operation" referred to yet I was still thoroughly confused by his definition. Poorly defined terms like that pollute Gast's text. Further, he repeatedly uses these poorly defined terms, so knowledge of their meaning is essential to understanding the substance. He also does a rather poor job discussing 802.11 security, particularly regarding the future of 802.11 security. I know it's a fast-developing subject, but this book is copyright 2002 and it's already outdated on this aspect of 802.11 in August of the same year. He could have done a bit more forecasting and research on this topic. This was the first 802.11 book I've read, but not my first technical book. It definitely goes into the bottom quarter of the latter category. There must surely be a better 802.11 book out there.
Rating:
Summary: Book has solid core, but some unnecessary text
Review: This book starts off with six strong chapters that cover the 802.11 protocol specification, why WEP is vulnerable and some of the upcoming security specifications. The first six chapters are invaluable reading for any sysadmin that is planning/currently responsible for an 802.11 deployment. Most of the book is right on the mark when it comes to the sysadmin audience, however chapters 8 (the PCF, for contention free service), 10 (the ISM PHYs), 11 (802.11a overview) are only of interest to folks who are implementing 802.11 hardware, IMHO. These chapters contain very low level material about the 802.11 transmisison protocol, and will not be generally useful since equipment manufacturers do not provide access to this layer. A dead giveaway that you can skip over chapter 8 is the phrase "The PCF has not been widely implemented." If it's not widely implemented, chances are you won't have the option of using it in a deployment. The final 3 chapters address deployment, analysis and tuning of 802.11 networks. These chapters, combined with the first six are the heart of this book and the whole motivation for buying the book. The analysis chapter has a particularly wonderful section about gathering user requirements with respect to 802.11 specific issues (security requirements, roaming...) and a very practical section about physical installation that clearly illustrates the author's mastery of integrating 802.11 technologies into an existing infrastructure.
Rating:
Summary: Outdated and by default, Useless.
Review: This book wouls be great if it was the year 2000 or something. It's outdated and therefor not a decent guide to implement any kind of .11 network unless you don't mind it being completely unsecured. Get a sample chapter here and you be the judge: ... Save Time and money by getting Syngress "Building a Cisco Wireless Network" or any other Syngress wireless book for that matter. They offer a 1 Year Buyer protection Plan that lets you get updates for your book if the technology changes within 12 months of your books purchase...very useful. I manage a multi-level wireless outfit for a company in Seattle and have been testing 11a and 11b for almost a year now. This book is barely worth reading, unless it was free! =) kevin
Rating:
Summary: Outdated and by default, Useless.
Review: This book wouls be great if it was the year 2000 or something. It's outdated and therefor not a decent guide to implement any kind of .11 network unless you don't mind it being completely unsecured. Get a sample chapter here and you be the judge: ... Save Time and money by getting Syngress "Building a Cisco Wireless Network" or any other Syngress wireless book for that matter. They offer a 1 Year Buyer protection Plan that lets you get updates for your book if the technology changes within 12 months of your books purchase...very useful. I manage a multi-level wireless outfit for a company in Seattle and have been testing 11a and 11b for almost a year now. This book is barely worth reading, unless it was free! =) kevin
Rating:
Summary: A great look into the world of 802.11
Review: With the advent of wireless networks and the going interest in faster and more secure networks the 802.11 standard is fast becoming one of the most talked and studied topics in networking today. With the release of this book you have a great first hand look at what you can expect and how it all works. In just over 450 pages the author has detailed out the way wireless is meant to be setup and configured. The documentation is well researched and judging by the content the author has certainly shown his expertise. Starting off the book is an overview into the world of 802.11, and for someone like me with limited knowledge this was a great way to be introduced to the material. The author goes into Frame breakdown, encryption, use with Windows and Linux, analyzing, tuning and PCMICA. Overall there is information from setup to deployment and just about everything in between, including the administration of the 802.11 networks. This becomes a very handy reference manual to have around - excellent job!
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