IEEE 802.11s: The WLAN Mesh Standard

The wireless local area network standard IEEE 802.11 is the preferred solution for lowcost data services. Key to its success are the 2.4 and 5 GHz unlicensed bands. The transmit power limitations imposed due to regulatory requirements limit the range (coverage) that can be achieved by WLANs in these bands. However, the demand for "larger" wireless infrastructure is emerging, ranging from office/university campuses to city-wide deployments. To overcome the limitations of singlehop communication, data packets need to traverse over multiple wireless hops, and wireless mesh networks are called for. Since 2004 Task Group S has been developing an amendment to the 802.11 standard to exactly address the aforementioned need for multihop communication. Besides introducing wireless frame forwarding and routing capabilities at the MAC layer, the 802.11s amendment brings new interworking and security. In this article, we provide insights into the latest developments in 802.11s and explain how the overall mesh concept fits into the 802 set of networking standards.