Comparison Of 802.11b And 802.11a Standards, Authentication In 802.11i, VPN Usage, And WMAN Tech For ZeeTech. (70 Characters)

1 Compare and contrast the inner workings of physical layers for 802.11b and 802.11a standards.

2 a. Explain how 802.11i allows for a client device to be authenticated against an authentication server. 
b. Discuss the usage of a virtual private network in establishing an encrypted secure communications channel between two points on a public network. 

3 Suppose your company needs your help with WMAN project. ZeeTech is a multinational import-export company. Because ZeeTech has grown in popularity, it now has five offices in Melbourne. ZeeTech is considering implementing a WMAN technology that will link all its offices as well as provide mobile wireless access to the field workers that need to travel between different sites in a city. ZeeTech would install a WMAN in each office and provide its office employees and field workers the tablet computers and mobile phones for better customer service and marketing. For this reason you are asked to perform a comparative study on different WMAN technologies. Your report should briefly describe your chosen technology as well as justify why your chosen technology is most suitable in terms of cost of service, data capacity, service area, speed of installation, and security. Please note, this is a fictional case study and you should assume that all five offices are medium size with 40 employees in each office and around 400 daily customers/clients on average. 

4 Discuss the three different multiple access technologies used with 2G: time division multiple access (TDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), and global system for mobile communications (GSM). 

802.11b vs. 802.11a standards

The WLANs or the Wireless Local Area Networks with higher and greater speed are absolutely famous or popular in each and every sectors in the world (Bayraktaroglu et al., 2013). These particular sectors are considered to be the most beneficial sectors in the society. The most important standard for the Wireless Local Area Networks is known as the IEEE 802.11. The most important aspect present in this particular standard is that this standard helps in the specification of the MAC or medium access control and the physical layer for the Wireless Local Area Networks. In the physical layer of the Wireless Local Area Networks, the IEEE 802.11 has four distinct standards, which are known as the 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n (Vinel, 2012). The comparison and contrast between the two standards that is the 802.11a and 802.11b are as follows:

The above given table helps to understand the basic contrast and the comparisons between the two most important standards of 802.11, the 802.11a and the 802.11b. The common feature between these two is that both the standards do their tasks in the WLAN’s physical layer.

The enhancement of the 802.11 standard is done by the 802.11i standard with the help of several new and innovative security mechanisms to be sure about the confidentiality and the integrity of the messages (Naraei, Amiri & Saberi, 2014). Additions are one of the innovative security mechanisms. The other mechanisms are the perfect substitutes of the major processes of the standard 802.11. Some other standard of IEEE is allowed by 802.11i. This particular standard is the authentication algorithm of 802.1x port. It provides a typical framework for obtaining the strong management of the keys and the mutual authentication (Vinel, 2012). The process of authentication, which begins at the first step is carried out with the help of two specific and relevant ways. The first way is by utilizing the PSK or the Pre-Shared Key whereas the second way is by following the interchange of EAP through the 802.1x port. This particular interchange of EAP is known as the EAPOL. The authentication server is required to be present when the exchange of EAP is done (De Cristofaro et al., 2013). The process of the exchange of EAP makes sure that the help of an access point should authenticate the client station or the client device. The moment the PSK or the pre shared key is completed, a brand new shared secret key is generated (Alasmary & Zhuang, 2012). This new shared key is called as the pair wise master key or PMK. Thus, it can be said that the standard of 802.11i allows a specific client device for the authentication against an authentication server by the help of the EAP exchange.

The Virtual Private Network or the VPN is an extended version of a private network, which allows all of its users for transmitting all types of information and data in any of the public networks with extreme security (Uskov, 2012). The various applications, which are run on a typical VPN, receive all of its benefits from the network’s security, functionality and management. There is not much differences between this Virtual Private Network and the several computing devices, which are connected directly. The private network is usually generated by the help of the establishment of a perfect point-to-point connection virtually by perfect connections and by several encryption in the traffic. This particular encryption traffic algorithm helps in the security of the communication and no hacker or intruder is able to intrude in the network (Uskov, 2012). The most important benefit that is provided by VPN to the point-to-point connection on a typical public network is that it absolutely acts like a WAN o a wide area network.

Authentication process in 802.11i

ZeeTech is a recognized multinational company that does import and export. They have five offices in Australia with forty employees in each of their offices. All of these five offices are attending approximately four hundred daily clients or customers regularly (Vinel, 2012). ZeeTech have thought of implementing a WMAN or Wireless Metropolitan Area Network technology in their multinational company that will connect all of their five offices and also, will be providing a mobile wireless access to their field workers because these workers have to travel in various sites.

ZeeTech has thought of implementing one Wireless Metropolitan Area Network in in their multinational company that will connect all of their five offices. There are some of the technologies of WMAN (Naraei, Amiri & Saberi, 2014). The best technology should be implemented in ZeeTech for their organization amongst every other technology. There are mainly three types of standards for WMANS. They are the HiperMAN, HiperACCESS and IEEE 802.16.

The HiperMAN or the High Performance Radio Metropolitan Area Network is the technology that provides a solution for broadband wireless for any Metropolitan Area Networks (Wang, Zhu & Gomes, 2012). HIPERMAN normally operates between the radio frequency range of 2 GHz and 11 GHz. The main advantage of this technology is that it enables flexible mesh network deployments.

The HiperACCESS or the High Performance Radio Access is the technology that provides broadband access to small and medium sized enterprises. It even provides backhaul for the mobile systems like WCDMA, GSM, CDMA2000 and GPRS (Wang, Zhu & Gomes, 2012). This particular technology was developed for providing a broadband system with but rates that ranges up to 100Mbit/sec approximately. However, the most widely deployed rate is about 25Mbit/sec. It is mainly developed for the higher frequency bands like the 40,5 to 43,5 GHz band.

The IEEE 802.16 Wireless MAN technology mostly specifies in the air interface for the particular networks. This technology also follows the connection of first mile/last mile in the WMANs (De Cristofaro et al., 2013). It mostly functions at the perfect utilization of the bandwidth between the 10 to 66 GHz and also helps in defining a MAC layer, that supports the several specifications of the physical layer.

The selection of the technology of HiperACCESS of WMAN would be the best technology for ZeeTech. The technology provides a higher speed and moreover it provides mobile communication (Bayraktaroglu et al., 2013). Moreover, it generates Backhaul. Backhaul helps in Wi-Fi connections, cellular tower connection and enterprise networks. It is extremely cost effective and can be easily afforded by Zeetecha and other organizations.

Conclusion:

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that ZeeTech is a recognized multinational company that does import and export. They have five offices in Australia with forty employees in each of their offices. All of these five offices are attending approximately four hundred daily clients or customers regularly (Vinel, 2012). ZeeTech have thought of implementing a WMAN or Wireless Metropolitan Area Network technology in their multinational company that will connect all of their five offices and also, will be providing a mobile wireless access to their field workers because these workers have to travel in various sites. They even travel across the city. ZeeTech should opt for the technology of HiperACCESS for the WMAN implementation.

The major three multiple access technologies, which are utilized with the 2G are the Time Division Multiple Access or TDMA, Code Division Multiple Access or CDMA and the Global System for Mobile Communications or GSM. The description of these topics is given below:

i) TDMA: The TDMA or Time Division Multiple Access is a process of accessing all the channels for all types of networks which are shared medium. It even enables all of its users in sharing the same channel of frequency (Ma, Leung & Li, 2014). This particular sharing is completely done by the segmentation of a specific signal into several slots of time.. This particular technology is utilized with 2G.

ii) CDMA: The Code Division Multiple Access or CDMA is the process to access the channel, similar to TDMA. However, the difference between the two is that CDMA is used by the several technologies of radio communications (Glisic & Leppänen, 2013). Several transmitters in a single channel of communication can transmit the data or the information simultaneously. For this particular reason, various users can share frequencies. This particular technology is also used with 2G.

iii) GSM: The Global System for Mobile Communication or GSM is the system of mobile of telephony, which works digitally (De Cristofaro et al., 2013). This particular communication uses the various technologies of TDMA within GSM. This is used in all over the world. This particular technology is also used with 2G.

References:

Alasmary, W., & Zhuang, W. (2012). Mobility impact in IEEE 802.11 p infrastructureless vehicular networks. Ad Hoc Networks, 10(2), 222-230.

Bayraktaroglu, E., King, C., Liu, X., Noubir, G., Rajaraman, R., & Thapa, B. (2013). Performance of IEEE 802.11 under jamming. Mobile Networks and Applications, 18(5), 678-696.

De Cristofaro, E., Du, H., Freudiger, J., & Norcie, G. (2013). A comparative usability study of two-factor authentication. arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.5344.

Glisic, S. G., & Leppänen, P. A. (2013). Wireless communications: TDMA versus CDMA. Springer Science & Business Media.

Ma, L., Leung, H., & Li, D. (2014). Hybrid TDMA/CDMA MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks. JNW, 9(10), 2665-2673.

Naraei, P., Amiri, I. S., & Saberi, I. (2014). Optimizing IEEE 802.11 i Resource and Security Essentials: For Mobile and Stationary Devices. Syngress.

Uskov, A. V. (2012, June). Information security of IPsec-based mobile VPN: Authentication and encryption algorithms performance. In Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom), 2012 IEEE 11th International Conference on (pp. 1042-1048). IEEE.

Uskov, A. V. (2012, May). Information security of mobile VPN: Conceptual models and design methodology. In Electro/Information Technology (EIT), 2012 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Vinel, A. (2012). 3GPP LTE versus IEEE 802.11 p/WAVE: Which technology is able to support cooperative vehicular safety applications?. IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, 1(2), 125-128.

Wang, J., Zhu, H., & Gomes, N. J. (2012). Distributed antenna systems for mobile communications in high speed trains. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 30(4), 675-683.