The IEEE 802 Family

The IEEE 802 Family

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is the largest professional organization in the world and is extremely influential with regard to setting standards. The 802 committee of the IEEE, for example, has developed a series of standards for LANs and WANs. The IEEE standards govern lower-layer protocols and interactions with transmission media. These standards have been recognized and reissued by the ISO as the ISO 802 standards.

Twelve subcommittees oversee the 802 standards. (A thirteenth committee has been proposed for the development of the 100BASE-X standard.) Figure 2.13 illustrates the position each standard occupies in the OSI reference model.

Further Information

IEEE 802.2
IEEE 802.3
IEEE 802.4
IEEE 802.5
IEEE 802.6
IEEE 802.9
IEEE 802.11
IEEE 802.12
IEEE 802.3 and IEEE 802.5 Media