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What's the difference between 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g?

What's the difference between 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g?

The first difference is that 802.11a uses the 5GHz radio frequency (RF) spectrum while 802.11g and 802.11b share the 2.4GHz spectrum. Therefore 802.11a will not interfere with 802.11g or 802.11b. Since 802.11a uses the 5GHz spectrum, it will have less distance capabilities due the physical nature of electromagnetic radiation.
802.11b and 802.11g use an RF spectrum that allows for 3 non-interfering channels (in North America). 802.11a uses a wider spectrum that allows for 12 non-interfering channels which will be 23 non-interfering channels with soon to be released standard. The idea of non-interfering (or non-overlapping) channels allows more wireless users to be concentrated in an area without having to share the transmission medium.

802.11b, while sharing the same 2.4GHz frequency spectrum as 802.11g, has lower transmission rates and different modulation techniques than 802.11g. For a discussion of transmission rates, see the question above titled “what speed can I get with wireless”.

802.11g has been designed to be compatible with 802.11b but the performance of 802.11g suffers greatly in the presence of 802.11b users.

802.11b is the first of the 802.11 technologies that is still widely deployed today. 802.11g is very popular due to its higher data rates and compatibility with 802.11b. 802.11a is more expensive and not as widely deployed but is gaining in popularity.


If considering which technology to purchase for your wireless device, try to get a device which supports all 3 technologies.

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What is the Difference Between 802.11B, 802.11G, and 802.11N?

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) certified a new standard, 802.11g, by merging two incompatible wireless networking standards 802.11b (goes far but not fast) and 802.11a (goes fast but not far). The new "g" standard has a 150-foot range, and the top speed is 54 Mbps (as opposed to 11 Mbps that we had with the "b" standard).

Among its key innovations, 802.11n adds technology called multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), a signal processing and smart antenna technique for transmitting multiple data streams through multiple antennas. This results in up to five times the performance and up to twice the range compated to the earlier 802.11g standard.

All of the wireless access points on our campus are now compliant with the "n" standard so that you can take advantage of the faster connections. The good news is that 802.11n is backward-compatible with 802.11b/g. This means that if you have a "b" or "g" card you do not have to purchase a new wireless card if you are satisfied with your connection speed.

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