[Isabelle Tubbs]

Wireless LAN standards have changed greatly since the original, which only allowed 2 Mbps network speeds and limited device compatibility. Now, more WLAN standards have gotten new features and increased their speed capabilities. Two of the more recent ones to mention are 802.11ac and 802.11ax.

802.11ac, used in 2013, can maintain speeds up to 7 Gbps in the 5 GHz band. It has a great amount of throughput and uses channels with 80 MHz. 802.11ac also utilizes orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, or OFDM. In addition, it uses multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) to utilize antennas more efficiently (IEEE Standards Association, 2023).

802.11ax added the ability for the network to be apportioned across different devices (IEEE Standards Association, 2023). Compared to other standards, it has a better range outdoors and works better in crowded locations (IEEE Standards Association, 2023).

References
IEEE Standards Association. (2023, May 16). The Evolution of Wi-Fi Technology and Standards. https://standards.ieee.org/beyond-standards/the-evolution-of-wi-fi-technology-and-standards/#:~:text=IEEE%20802.11b%E2%84%A2%2C%20or,as%20video%20and%20cloud%20access.