Matthew Gast

I was actually rather pleased with this.
I bought it specifically to try to understand why the delivered throughput of 802.11g is so far from the headline bitrate (only about 50%) and it answered that to my satisfaction.

It discusses the technology of 802.11 from the different modulation techniques used (explained simply but, IMHO, very well, considering no use of mathematics) through the framing and headers, through the medium access mechanisms.
There was also a massive coverage of security, show more most of it targetted at enterprises and of no interest to me, but that's what one expects from this sort of tech book: lots off detail of a variety of topics from which you pick and choose what interests you. show less

This is a first rate book from O'Reilly. Plenty of depth, to the point that there will be little need to buy any other book on the subject. Here you will learn all about the physical layer, the 802.11 protocol, and plenty of information on the alphabet soup that surrounds it.

The guide is readable and logically laid out. It will make a great reference work but can be read through as a single whole too.

I don't need this book anymore. WLANs have gotten to the point where everything works pretty smoothly out of the box.