The acronym stands for the "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers". The IEEE and its predecessors, the AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers) and the IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) dates back to 1884. The AIEE and IRE merged to form the IEEE on January 1, 1963. The IEEE promotes the engineering process of creating, developing, integrating, sharing, and applying knowledge about electro and information technologies and sciences for the benefit of humanity and the profession. The IEEE leads the way in developing open, leading-edge consensus standards for Wireless Local Area Networks (Wireless LAN's), Wireless Personal Area Networks (Wireless PANs), and Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (Wireless MANs). While the standards established by the IEEE do not directly carry the force of law for compliance, they have often been used by legal governing bodies (FCC, local building codes, etc). as a basis for developing regulations. More importantly, designers and manufacturers can look to the IEEE standards to determine how to create equipment that will be interoperable and compatible in the general marketplace.

In February of 1980 the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) formed a committee to establish standards for local area network communication. The committee's identifying number reflects the year and month that it was created, "80" - "2". A number of separate committees have been formed, each responsible for developing standards in different areas of technology. Of particular interest are the 802.11 committee (with a number of separate working groups) for wireless standards, the 802.1 committee for device interaction and security, and the 802.3 committee for Ethernet networking.

The IETF is an international community of network designers, researchers, and vendors that establish standards for Internet communication. Recommendations for standard communication rules are made through "Request for Comments" (RFC's). An RFC begins as a draft document which is reviewed by members of a particular IETF task force and which, ultimately, becomes a finalized document. There are hundreds of RFC documents. Some of these include:

RFC 791 - Internet Protocol (IP)

RFC 768 - User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

RFC 793 - Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

RFC 959 - File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

RFC 2068 - Hypertext Transfer Protocol 1.1 (HTTP)

RFC 2131 - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

RFC 3261 - Session Initiation Protocol (SIP, for VoIP)

When you see an access point spec sheet indicating that equipment meets the "IP-67" rating for environmental resistance, this refers to the International Protection Code; definitions of the degree to which a device can withstand the weather. For a discussion of the meaning of the two-digit rating number, please refer to the discussion on the Outdoor WiFi Point-to-Point Link page.

A theoretical electromagnetic radiator (antenna) that radiates signal energy equally in all directions, in a spherical pattern surrounding the point-radiator. This would imply that

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is an organization that sets standards for international communication of many types, including telephony. The Telecom Standardization Organization (-T) issues recommendations specific to telephone communication. For example, the ITU-T E.164 recommendation specifies the telephone numbering plan whereby, for example, the United States uses a 10-digit (area code+exchange+number) phone number format. ITU-T V.34 is a standard for full-duplex communication, as is ITU-T X.25, and X.500 is a standard for directory services in information technology.