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Rating: 
Summary: Why No Index?
Review: For 60 bucks, the lack of an index is inexcusable.
Rating: 
Summary: Pulling together the information in the 802.11 standards
Review: I co-wrote this book to help everyone who has not had the benefit of participating in the development of the 802.11 standards. This book brings together the background and rationale for why things are done the way they are in the standard and how the individual tools provided by the standard can be combined to provide strong capabilities for real products. This book will aid the designer of 802.11 products, as well as the user of those products, to fully understand the functions and features of the standard.This book includes information on all of the 802.11 standards, the base 802.11 standard for wireless LANs (revised in 1999), 802.11a 5 GHz physical layer, and 802.11b higher rate 2.4 GHz physical layer. In addition, the book discusses some of the areas that are just beginning to be discussed for further standardization. There is nothing more current or more complete, unless you are attending the 802.11 working group meetings. In this book you will find a concise description of the MAC, MAC management, and all five of the physical layers. You will also find a discussion of the system issues related to the use of a wireless LAN. All of this information is compiled in a fashion to make it easy to reference the standards and to combine everything synergistically. I hope that you find this book informative, easy to use, and complete. I welcome your comments on the book. Please send email to the address above.
Rating: 
Summary: Concise 802.11 protocol overview, no fluff, poorly written
Review: If you are an engineer with need to quickly understand the details of the 802.11 protocol, but do not want to plow through hundreds of pages of the IEEE specification, this book is for you. It is a good concise treatment of the details of the protocol. It is written for practicing telecommunications engineers. It is not 'wireless 101' and it is not for someone who wants to know how to set up a home or enterprise 802.11 network. It does not describe what unratified (as of this writing) 802.11e, 802.11 g, 802.11i specs are. It does cover the 802.11a and 802.11b phy layer descriptions. Unfortunately, the lack of a detailed Table of Contents, lack of any index at all, a super sparce list of acronyms hurt the readability. This also makes its use as a quick reference not so quick. I also think that the figures are too simple and that better use of detailed figures would help the book considerably. However, the actual IEEE spec has very good figures. This book and the IEEE spec are side by side companions on my bookshelf and complement each other nicely. I have found other books to date on the subject much too soft as far as technical detail on the protocol mechanisms. The authors participated in the design of 802.11 and know how to present the most salient features for embedded engineers. If you want a concise explanation of the 802.11 spec, and already have a fundamental understanding of how ethernet works, this is the book for you. So, I give it 4/5 stars on applicability of this content, but not for literary style and construct. If you are more interested in what is a wireless LAN, what affects the signal propagation, how do you plan to put in an 802.11 LAN in your enterprise, and a little overview on the protocol, buy the James T. Geier book
Rating:
Summary: Concise 802.11 protocol overview, no fluff, poorly written
Review: If you are an engineer with need to quickly understand the details of the 802.11 protocol, but do not want to plow through hundreds of pages of the IEEE specification, this book is for you. It is a good concise treatment of the details of the protocol. It is written for practicing telecommunications engineers. It is not 'wireless 101' and it is not for someone who wants to know how to set up a home or enterprise 802.11 network. It does not describe what unratified (as of this writing) 802.11e, 802.11 g, 802.11i specs are. It does cover the 802.11a and 802.11b phy layer descriptions. Unfortunately, the lack of a detailed Table of Contents, lack of any index at all, a super sparce list of acronyms hurt the readability. This also makes its use as a quick reference not so quick. I also think that the figures are too simple and that better use of detailed figures would help the book considerably. However, the actual IEEE spec has very good figures. This book and the IEEE spec are side by side companions on my bookshelf and complement each other nicely. I have found other books to date on the subject much too soft as far as technical detail on the protocol mechanisms. The authors participated in the design of 802.11 and know how to present the most salient features for embedded engineers. If you want a concise explanation of the 802.11 spec, and already have a fundamental understanding of how ethernet works, this is the book for you. So, I give it 4/5 stars on applicability of this content, but not for literary style and construct. If you are more interested in what is a wireless LAN, what affects the signal propagation, how do you plan to put in an 802.11 LAN in your enterprise, and a little overview on the protocol, buy the James T. Geier book
Rating:
Summary: Way too expensive for a very short book.
Review: In general, it's a good book because it covers the essentials in a concise manner. However, there are many places that it just copies straight from the 802.11 spec without any explanation. My copy does not have an index and it costs $60 + tax.
Rating:
Summary: Way too expensive for a very short book.
Review: In general, it's a good book because it covers the essentials in a concise manner. However, there are many places that it just copies straight from the 802.11 spec without any explanation. My copy does not have an index and it costs $60 + tax.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for implementors and beginners alike.
Review: Simple, concise, language. A good number of diagrams that immediately convey the more complicated aspects of 802.11. Brings out the important issues and nuances clearly.
Rating:
Summary: 802.11 Handbook
Review: This book is unlike others I have seen, having a good balance between MAC and PHY topics. It is also easy to navigate throughout the book - so finding specific things is relatively easy. The edition I purchased has a list of acronyms and abbreviations in the back (last page). If you are new to 802.11 or need a good reference book, this one will probably fit the bill.
Rating:
Summary: I really miss the list of abbreviations
Review: Without a list of abreviations, the book is unreadable. It is full with them, and the meaning of an abrevaition is given only upon it's first appearance in the text. After I made for myself a list of abreviations (see below), the book became readable, and gives a good overview of the IEEE 802.11 standard. ACK=ACKnowledge; AGW=Additive Wite Gaussian; AID=Association IDentifier; AP=Access Point; ASN=Abstract Syntax Notation; ATIM=Announcement Traffic Indication Message; BER=Bit Error Rate; BPSK=Binary Phase Shift Keying; BSA=Business Software Alliance; BSS=Basic Service Set; BSSID=Basic Service Set IDentifier; CCITT=Comité Consultatif International Télégraphique et Téléphonique; CCK=Complementary Code Keying; CDMA=Code Division Multiple Access; CF=Contention Free; CFP=Contention Free Period; CSMA=Carier Sense Multiple Access; CSMA/CA=Carier Sense Multiple Access with Colission Avoidance; CRC=Cyclic Redundancy Check; CTS=Clear To Send; CW=Continues Wave; DA=Destination Address; DBPSK=Differential Binary Phase Shift Keying; DCF=Distributed Coordination Function; DHCP=Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol; DIFS=Distributed InterFrame Space; DQPSK=Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying; DS=Distribution System; DSSS=Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum; DTIM=Delivery Traffic Indication Map; EIFS=Extended InterFrame Space; EIRP=Effective Isotopic Radiated Power; ERP=Effective Radiated Power; ESS=Extended Service Set; ETSI=European Telecommunications Standards Institute; FCC=Federal Communications Commission; FCS=Frame Check Sequence; FDDI=Fiber Distributed Data Interference; FH=Frequency Hopping; FHSS=Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum; GFSK=Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying; GPS=Global Positioning System; HR=High Rate; HR/DSSS=High Rate Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum; IBSS=Independent Basic Service Set; ICV=Integrity Check Value; ID=IDentifier; IV=Initialization Vector; IEEE=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; IAPP=Inter-Access Point Protocol; IP=Internet Protocol; IR=InfraRed; ISI=Inter Symbol Interference; ISM=Industrial, Scientific and Medical; ITU=International Telecommunications Union; LAN=Local Area Network; LBT=Listen Before Talk; LLC=Logical Link Control; MAC=Medium Access Control layer; MIB=Management Information Base; MMAC-PC=Mobile Multimedia Access Communication Promition Council; MSDU=MAC Service Data Unit; NACK=Negative ACKnowledge; NAV=Network Allocation Vector; NIC=Network Interface Card; OFDM=Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing; OSI=Open Systems Interconnection; PBCC=Packet Binary Convolution Coding; PC=Point Coordinator; PCMCIA=Personal Computer Memory Card International Association; PCF=Point Coordination Function; PER=Packet Error Rate; PHY=PHYsical layer; PICS=Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement; PIFS=Priority InterFrame Space; PLCP=Physycal Layer Convergence Procedure; PMD=Physical Medium Dependant; PPDU=PLCP Protocol Data Unit; PPM=Pulse Position Modulation; PS=Power Save; PSDU=PLCP Serive Data Unit; QPSK=Quadrature Phase Shift Keying; RA=Receiver Address; RC4=RSA Cipher algorithm 4; RF=Radio Frequency; RFID=Radio Frequency ID; RMS=Root Mean Square; RSA=Rivest-Shamir-Adleman; RSADSI=RSA Data Security Inc.; RTS=Request To Send; SA=Source Address; SFD=Start of Frame Delimmiter; SIFS=Short InterFrame Space; SNMP=Simple Network Management Protocol; SSID=Service Set IDentity; SYNC=SYNChronisation; TA=Transmitter Address; TIM=Traffic Indication Map; WEP=Wired Equivalent Privacy; WLAN=Wireless Local Area Network.
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