The IEEE announced two significant improvements to 802.11 standards.
IEEE 802.11aa-20121 supports more robust audio and video streaming for IEEE 802.11 applications. The new spec adds several QoS features, including group-addressed transmission service, stream classification service, management of overlapping networks and support for the IEEE 802.1Q Stream Reservation Protocol. The IEEE said these enhancements for the 802.11 MAC (Medium Access Control) layer are intended to deliver a host of benefits, including improved management of audio/video stream quality, link reliability and application performance in instances such as when channel capacity is insufficient or when WLANs overlap on the same radio channel. IEEE 802.11aa is available for purchase at the IEEE Standards Store.
IEEE 802.11ae-20122 improves network performance by prioritizing management frames sent on an IEEE 802.11 wireless link. This new spec defines a mechanism for prioritizing management frames and a protocol for communicating prioritization policy. IEEE 802.11ae enables a more sophisticated prioritization capability that balances the need to move both network management information and data traffic and yields improved performance of IEEE 802.11 networks and the applications that use them. IEEE 802.11ae is available for purchase at the IEEE Standards Store. http://standards.ieee.org 31-Jul-12
