Talk:IEEE 802

Comment

It might be nice to have a little bit of history about the development of the 802 standards. I will start to see what I can find. -- Grubber 12:04 June 15, 2005 (UTC)

Hasn't .12 been disbanded?

Added a link to the OSI page. -- Maxwell Rain 19:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Subordinate standards

Some of the decimal parts of the 802 standards have really stubby articles - these stray paragraphs could usefully be dropped into the 802 article. (I've made a similar criticism on the IEC standards where someone has created stubs for the decimal fractionso of several IEC standards). --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

802.13ah or 802.3ah?

In the article IEEE 802.13 is said not to have been used. At the same time it says that IEEE 802.13ah Defines "Copper for the first mile" for Metro Area Networks (proposed). How can that be? The IEEE web site has no reference to 802.13ah but it does have a reference to 802.3ah "Ethernet in the First Mile". the article is therefore muddled and I propose deletion of the reference to 802.13ah. Comments? 83.104.249.240 (talk) 04:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I've done some more research. Googling "IEEE 802.13ah" gives five hits, one of which is this WP article. Another is a clear reference to this article and one more looks suspiciously like a cut and paste of this article. The fourth hit is truncated with a server runtime error just after the reference to 802.13 (hmmmm...). That leaves one bona fide looking hit, which is the reason I haven't done the deletion. My thinking is that it must be a typo. If I Google "IEEE 802.3ah" I get 71,700 hits. 83.104.249.240 (talk) 05:06, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the edit. The Network World reference above includes a "Related Content" section, which refers to 802.3ah, not 802.13ah. Also WP's own IEEE 802.3 article refers to 802.3ah. The evidence is overwhelming. If anyone disagrees please revert and cite a source. 83.104.249.240 (talk) 05:20, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

This is correct. The IEEE's website (which should be authoritative!) shows 803.3ah as 'Ethernet in the First Mile'. Whether we need a separate citation for each of the working groups is another question -- my feeling is that we don't. BPMullins | Talk 19:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

References

802.13

Distributed Systems (University of Duisburg and Essen) p.68 indicates that it was unused because 13 is unlucky. Other unreliable references indicate that 802.13 was used for 100BASE-X Ethernet. We'll leave it as unused for now but if anyone has a reliable ref that indicates what happened here, that would be appreciated. --Kvng (talk) 14:58, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

802.15.1 bluetooth disbanded

IS it correct that 802.15.1 bluetooth has been disbanded? DGerman (talk) 22:32, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

RM vs IM

It could be beneficial to clarify the difference between a 'reference model' and an 'implementation model' in the 802 standards. From the 802 overview pg.11:

The IEEE 802 implementation models (IMs) are more specific than the IEEE 802 RMs, allowing differentiation between implementation approaches (e.g., different MAC protocols and PHYs).

Tule-hog (talk) 22:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't know a good definition of an IEEE implementation model. An example in IEEE 802-2014 simply provides more details inside one layer (PHY). The ability to substitute one MAC for another (and one PHY for another) was there from the very beginning (I will add a source). Dimawik (talk) 04:33, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

LLC, multiplexing, and ISO

One fundamental difference between IEE 802 and ISO models is LLC that allows the data-layer multiplexing (multiple protocols over the same link) absent in the ISO (where multiplexing is done in the network layer and above). I am looking for a good source and would appreciate any pointers. Dimawik (talk) 20:05, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Here are AI (Claude Opus 4.6) attempts to stretch Tanenbaum's textbook:

The most relevant passage is in Section 4.3.2 (pp. 283–284) of Tanenbaum's Computer Networks (5th ed.).

On data-link-layer multiplexing in DIX Ethernet:

Multiple network-layer protocols may be in use at the same time on the same machine, so when an Ethernet frame arrives, the operating system has to know which one to hand the frame to. The Type field specifies which process to give the frame to.

On why LLC was introduced in IEEE 802.3:

IEEE 802.3, in its wisdom, decided that this field would carry the length of the frame, since the Ethernet length was determined by looking inside the data—a layering violation if ever there was one. Of course, this meant there was no way for the receiver to figure out what to do with an incoming frame. That problem was handled by the addition of another header for the LLC (Logical Link Control) protocol within the data. It uses 8 bytes to convey the 2 bytes of protocol type information.

And the punchline:

Now IEEE can maintain that everyone is using its standard and everybody else can keep on doing what they were already doing (not bothering with LLC) without feeling guilty about it.

The implicit contrast with the ISO/OSI model appears earlier, in Section 1.4.5 (~p. 51–52):

The data link layer originally dealt only with point-to-point networks. When broadcast networks came around, a new sublayer had to be hacked into the model.

The two passages together — §4.3.2 for the LLC multiplexing mechanism, and §1.4.5 for the OSI critique — provide a solid Tanenbaum citation for the architectural difference in question. Dimawik (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2026 (UTC)