IEEE

networking

Stands for: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

The engineering society whose 802 committee defines the LAN standards everything on this site runs over.

The IEEE Standards Association is where Ethernet (802.3), Wi-Fi (802.11), and bridging/VLANs (802.1, including 802.1Q and Spanning Tree's 802.1D lineage) live. The 802 family is a map of working groups, each owning a layer-2 technology - a map this site will chart group by group in a dedicated explainer.

The IEEE standardizes the physical and data-link layers most networks run on, which is why so much equipment documentation is a list of numbers. 802.3 is Ethernet, 802.11 is wireless, 802.1Q is VLAN tagging, 802.1X is port authentication, and the amendment letters after them are how each has evolved.

That numbering is worth learning because it is the precise way to ask a question. Saying a switch supports 802.1Q tells you something exact; saying it supports VLANs does not distinguish tagging from proprietary schemes. Vendor datasheets list conformance in this notation for the same reason, and reading it is the fastest way to establish what a device will actually interoperate with.

Also known as: ieee, ieee 802, 802.3, 802.11, 802.1

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