Customer Reviews

802.11 Demystified: Wi-Fi Made Easy (Telecommunications)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The newest technology for networking is wireless and the protocol that covers this is 802.11. In just over 280 pages I found a wealth of information that not only simplifies the concepts but also helped me understand how this new technology will enhance networking as we know it.

What the authors do in this book, which I haven't seen in any others is breakdown the protocol first, explaining how the different levels of 802.11, BlueTooth and 3G work. This includes 802.11, 11A, 11B and 11G, each having a specific purpose and function.

I found that not only is there different types of protocols but also hardware and carriers for wireless LANs as well, the book does a good job of distinguishing each from the other. The authors also cover the process of implementation and planning which makes this a fairly well rounded manual.

One thing I like most about the book was the coverage of the applications you can use and what groups are already using the technology. While this book isn't written to any certification per say, this book will be a handy reference for the CWNA exam and beyond

This book contains too much fluff. The title is somewhat misleading in my opinion. It has almost 300 pages but only about 150-170 of those pages actually deal with 802.11. Even of those pages, a considerable amount of space is devoted to covering the other 802.11 working groups leaving me disappointed in the 802.11b coverage. The rest of the book covers other wireless networking technologies (such as hiperlan, homeRF and countless others that most of us will never encounter). It also spends way too many pages on vague, 1-2 paragraph descriptions of how business x has implemented a 802.11 network to enhance productivity. And finally, the last 61 pages (aka appendix A), is a word-for-word reprint of the FCC regulations covering unlicensed emissions. These regulations apply to, but are not specific to, 802.11 and are surely available for free on the internet if you really have to have them. I'm still looking for a good WiFi book.

As a software engineer, I have worked in the telecom software industry for the last severals years and have been playing catch-up to the standards for every one of those years because of the number of standards and relationships between them. This book has finally put one of the most significant of these standards 802.11 in perspective within the family of telecom standards. Superb research, analysis and context make this book a great read and asset to telecom application software development.

This book is good for people condsidering WLAN for their business or using WLAN technology in their products. Some tech details, but if you don't know what spread spectrum is, why its important to WLANs and why security is such a problem - topics such as that - then this book is for you. It's not a tech bits/bytes programming manual, but if you want that - you can download the spec from IEEE free. If you want a good view of where the technology fits with other wireless data technologies, why its so popular and what areas are problems, this book gets you going.

Great reference for keeping up with the dizzying amounts of data on standards out there. Jim does a nice job of grounding the subject for understaning purposes. Good place to "start" if this subject matter is unfamiliar to the reader.

Pete

The title is accurate. I liked this book because the author has taken a complicated and very technical topic and broken it down to the laymen's level, such as myself. I highly recommend this book.

This book severs as an introductory book. If you are an engineer with backgound on ethernet, you can skip this. This book is supposed for non-technical people, like marketing. Go for 802.11 wireless network if you want to know more.

This is an admirable explication of the interactive affects of standards, regulation, technology, service, and economics on the surprisingly convolved evolution of Wi-Fi. The authors effectively preserve these five themes throughout. Thus the reader should be able to recognize concepts of interest, and bypass the minutiae. What IT person, or armchair technocrat hasn't meditated about why a technology such as Wi-Fi survived the onslaught of ingenious alternatives. Consider it the story of Wi-Fi, as it has lived and breathed to date. I dare say that this "history of Wi-Fi" would give excellent service in business schools as a study of how successful electronic technologies actually survive many subtle interdisciplinary trials. This is a comparatively good read - advanced thinkers in IT or telecommunications could allocate a minute a page with entirely adequate comprehension.

Easily one of my worst purchases. After reading the first few chapters and then and realizing that this is just fluf and someone pasted together various article from mostly none-technical sources and internal documents , I looked to see author's credentials. All I could find that author is industry insider. I believe that he is an insider, evident by cutting and pasting several technical documents by the developers. This is not a book written by an author or authors, but rather a book put together. Given that how causally authors state (obviously copied) some of the more sophisticated material makes you wonder whether they really have the grasp of what they are presenting. I am sorry but author of a book with words "demystified" and "wireless made easy" in its title, surely must know that 1 page narration of WEP algorithm is going to add mystery. This is juts one example illustrating the disconnect in material and fillers, that authors jammed in.
Wast of money, waste of tree; Mcgraw-Hill is going to lose credibility if they let this sort of book published.