Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

The only significant detail that's been excluded has to do with security--a notorious weak point of 802.11x LANs. The authors cover the feeble but widely used Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) authentication protocol in detail and devote another whole chapter to 802.1x, which is an emerging authentication scheme based on Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). The author has considerable skill in communicating information graphically and does a great job of using graphs to show how communications frequencies shift over time and how conversations among access points and network nodes progress over time. This is indeed an authoritative document. --David Wall

Topics covered: How IEEE 802.11a and 802.11b wireless networks (also known as WiFi networks) work, and how to configure your own. The framing specification is covered well, as are authentication protocols and (in detail) the physical phenomena that affect IEEE 802.11x radio transmissions. There's advice on how to design a wireless network topology, and how to go about network traffic analysis and performance improvement.

Average Customer Rating:

Very practical, little theory

Customer Rating:

This book serves as a good, practical, "how-to" guide. The first 9 chapters are a "TCP/IP Illustrated"-style detailed look at the low-level details of 802.11, covering the format of every packet involved, when each packet is used, what each format means and how configuration parameters on both the sending and the receiving side will affect the individual packets. This is by far the most detailed, and most useful, section of the book. Chapters 10-13, which attempt to address the theoretical side of wireless networks (and 802.11 in particular), rush through the subject far too quickly to be of any practical value - if you have a very strong grounding in electromagnetic wave theory, you might get something from this section, but if that's the case, there's probably nothing here you don't already know. The author clearly knows what he's talking about, but he tried to cram an entire book worth of material into about 100 pages. (In his defense, he acknowledges this toward the start of the section). The remainder of the book talks about specifics of installations and looks at Windows, Mac and Linux and examines various different hardware specifications for each. This part was interesting, but hopelessly out of date (I can't imagine how anybody could write about this topic and not be out of date before the ink dried on the print). Missing was any coverage of WPA and WPA2. Chapter 6 talks a bit about EAP and LEAP; I suspect that WPA & WPA2 were still undergoing standardization as this book was being written. Still, the content of the book gave me enough understanding of the building blocks of 802.11 networks to make sense of the IEEE documentation on WPA.

Intersting, fun, and informative

Customer Rating:

This book is based on the hack series from O'Reilly so the book is broken into categorical chapters, each of which cover a wireless networking topic. There are 7 broad chapters each which average about 12 hacks. The hacks vary greatly from composition and varying according to platform (Windows, Mac, Linux), difficulty, and expertise required. All hacks are covered well with diagrams, examples, explanations, and links for further reading. One of the best items about the hacks is that they can be done at home to improve modest networks. In fact, most are designed to show a home or SOHO network owner "how to" improve networks of modest means. The chapter on homemade antennas is particuarly interesting. I was inspired to build my own out of duct work sheet metal, masking tape, and a coat hanger after reading "Pringles Can Waveguide" hack. The antenna actually worked which was the best part. There are 100 hacks covered so everyone will find something of interest. For the most part, each hack is a separate chapter in itself so it is not neccesary to flip back and forth to find information. In general, they are written in instructional prose and are meant to teach you how to accomplish each hack. Other chapters of interest cover wireless network security (many of which could just be labeled basic network security - wired or wireless), network discovery, and hardware hacks. There are also 2 appendices covering wireless standards (the 802.1x's) and various hardware components that can be used for do-it-yourselfers. This book is a very good value for network admins, hobbiests, and those looking to improve home or SOHO wireless networks.

Good overview	Customer Rating:
This is a great book to get started with 802.11 wireless networks. It gives a great overview and a decent amount of detail. For more detail I used open source available on the web, Linux drivers, and a book on 802.11i for more in depth knowledge on security.

Very good, but dated

Customer Rating:

This book is a very detailed and mostly thorough description of 802.11 wireless networking. The author clearly describes the protocols and how they are typically used, plus various wireless network topologies, and even information about deployment such as antenna types. Where the book falls short is that it was clearly written before the growth in popularity of "wireless controllers" or "wireless switches", and the auther says almost nothing about them or how wireless networking works when using a wireless-controller-based network. There also was not much information about wireless network management, although that might be beyond the scope of this book.

Excellent book

Customer Rating:

I've been looking for a book that discusses 802.11 technical details but that is easier to follow than the standards themselves. I've been very happy with this book, as it has helped me find the answers I was looking for. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that I wish it had a few more sections that walked through sequences of actions (such as association and re-association). The information is there, but is sometimes scattered, so you have to pull together from different parts of the book and mentally reassemble. Othewise, it's very well written and I recommend it to anyone who needs a good working reference book for 802.11 operations.