Duration: 5days Hands on: Wireshark based real-life Wi-Fi packet trace analysis Demos : Alethea Wicheck multi-sta emulator for understanding performance of Wi-Fi APs and to study impact of multiple clients running different traffic types Demo using WLANPi to showcase the powerful sniffing using simple tools Day 1: Wi-Fi Technology Overview Wi-FI Overview IEEE 802.11 standards and its role WFA and its role; interoperability and certification Relationship between 802.11 and Wi-Fi Wi-Fi networks; BSS/IBSS/P2P/mesh BSS, IBSS, ESS, DS, BSSID, SSID, MBSS Typical evolution of the Wi-Fi AP along with the ecosystem Important chipset players ODMs Breakup of solution; software, hardware, and firmware Role of open-source solutions like openwrt Wi-Fi direct vs. ad-hoc networks ; differences Mesh and WDS; what is the need?. IEEE 802.11 set of standards and their evolution Speeds and bandwidths Key technologies; OFDM, MIMO, and their impacts Upcoming standards; new technologies like OFDMA Spectrum of operation Security, QoS, and other features evolution
WLAN deployment scenarios; home vs. hotspot vs. service provider vs. enterprise Wi-Fi product space; a survey of some interesting features Wi-Fi and IOT; link with BLE and Zigbee/Thread 802.11ba; Wi-Fi Wakeup radio and its impacts Wi-Fi and voice ; Wi-Fi calling Wi-Fi and LTE unlicensed 802.11ad/ay; 60 GHz Wi-Fi status Future of Wi-Fi; multiband optimization, optimized connectivity and other initiatives Day 2: Wi-Fi PHY. Layer Challenges; the channel environment Problems with high data rate communication Role of PHY. Layer in 802.11 2.4 and 5 GHz channels ; 20/40/80/160 MHz bandwidth operations Power of Wi-Fi; use of dbs, dbms, dbi DFS; Why and some rules Modulation and error control coding; MCS PHY. layer technology evolution; 802.11/11b/11a/11g/11n/11ac OFDM fundamentals o Subcarrier spacing, OFDM symbol period, cyclic prefix
o Calculation of PHY. Data rate and its implication OFDM in 802.11..evolution and calculations MIMO basics o Differences between diversity, spatial multiplexing, and STBC o Costs of MIMO Spatial streams ; product and link configurations and their impacts Data rate calculations; different rates of operation in a Wi-Fi network Receive sensitivity Beamforming o Differences with STBC o Feedback steps MU-MIMO o How is it different to normal MIMO o Advantages o Links with beamforming Future of the PHY in 802.11 o OFDMA o MU-MIMO enhancements Day 3 : Medium Access Control Concepts and Wi-Fi Operations Role of MAC, interactions with other layers Terminology ; MSDU/MPDU, header, FCS DCF Protocol in WLAN CSMA/CA Role of PHY in CCA DCF parameters; DIFS/SIFS, slot time Basic DCF frame exchange Hidden node problems RTS/CTS/CTS-Self; virtual carrier sensing, NAV concepts MAC frame formats; types of frames, frame headers
Basic DCF throughput analysis MAC layer aspects of 802.11n o Frame aggregation and its impact o A-MSDU and A-MPDU o TCP/IP and UDP/IP throughput impact with aggregation o MAC frame impacts with frame aggregation o Block Acknowledgement and TXoP Beacons Network Entry Process Active and Passive Scanning Association Security Concepts in WLAN o WPA/WPA2/WPS Virtual APs Evolution of power save techniques (Legacy, WMM, and SM power save) Rate adaptation; typical rates QoS in 802.11 Day 4 : Understanding Wi-Fi Through Packet Analysis Quick recap of Wi-Fi protocol and capabilities understanding Data frames addressing o Source/transmit and destination/receive addressing QoS Control field analysis; A-MSDU and TID info.
o QoS data type o A-MSDU insights o QoS access category Retransmissions monitoring o How can we debug potential Wi-Fi performance problems?. MIMO; spatial streams, STBC, antennas etc. Use of RTS/CTS Power save in Wi-Fi; use of null frames Wi-Fi roaming without 11r 802.11r basics Trace analysis with and without 11r o 11r related capabilities exchange o Different keys and their roles Use of 11k and its impacts o 11k related capabilities o Neighbour request messages 11v BSS Transition management and its impacts o 11v capabilities How to look at PHY. Related information, MCS, rates, beamforming, bandwidth etc. AP and client support for beamforming ; where to find out? Beamforming example; starting from Sounding to data transmission Potential problem scenarios ; where could things go wrong?..
Day 5 : 802.11ax Module 1 :Introduction and Overview (1.5 hours) 802.11/Wi-Fi evolution and Status Real-life challenges of 802.11/Wi-Fi; high-density/large number of APs.. Drawbacks of 802.11ac Motivation for 802.11ax New use cases Status of the standardization and documents RF bands of operation Competition from LTE-unlicensed (LTE-U,LAA, and MuLTEfire) LTE plus Wi-Fi approaches Module 2 :802.11ax technology - PHY (2 hours) High-level view of different PHY. modes in 11ax OFDM vs. OFDMA Concept of Rus and splits of various bandwidths Outdoor operation Handling multiple users on the DL; MU-MIMO and OFDMA OFDMA and its differences with plain OFDM Why OFDMA for 11ax?. OFDMA details and options for different bandwidths Coding and higher order modulation possibilities in 11ax
Rates in 11ac vs. 11ax Module 3 : Multiuser Operation in 802.11ax (2 hours) Current multiuser framework in 802.11 Performance of 802.11 in high-density environments Challenges due to control and management frames Downlink multiuser operational details o Scheduling Uplink multiuser operations o Scheduling and triggering Module 4 :MAC enhancements in 802.11ax (1.5 hours) CSMA/CA challenges in 802.11 in presence of multiple BSS Dynamic CCA Thresholds o Motivation o Approaches to solve problem o Coexistence challenges 802.11ax channel access rule NAV settings in 11ax Spatial reuse rules and impacts.. RTS enforcement Multi-BSS announcement Trigger TWT New power save considerations New features * * * * * * *