A Real-Time Study of 802.11b and 802.11g

In recent past, there has been a tremendous increase in the study and implementation of wireless technologies. The idea of wireless networks started with the 802.11 standards that soon became popular with the wireless LAN, called Wi-Fi. The increase usage of Wi- Fi-enabled laptops, PDA¿s and other devices is a clear indicator of Wi-Fi¿s widespread acceptance. Wi-Fi is a conglomeration of standards, out of which the three main standards are 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g. Two of the standards, 802.11b and 802.11g, have interoperable characteristics; while the other, 802.11a, operates on a completely different frequency and hence lacks such interoperability. The objective of this paper is to study the performance of 802.11b and 802.11g standards in real-time while implementing an actual file transfer. The specific performance factors studied were protocol congestion, bandwidth and latency.