Al Hoang

I got curious about what the channel allocation plan for 802.11 (Wi-Fi) is. After alway choosing a random channel that is not the same as any other nearby WiFi point I beacme curious to see what the channel plan is. After some googling around I dug up a channel plan on the net. If you know what channel plans are you can just skip the next paragraph and read on. Otherwise…

WHAT’S A CHANNEL PLAN?

If channel plan doesn’t make much sense. What happens is when you’re given a range of frequences you can broadcast on. You end up segmenting the range of frequences into a set. So for example 802.11 for the U.S. covers 2.412Ghz – 2.462Ghz frequency range. Now in theory you could just things wherever you want but it makes sense to put them in intervals that gives the best multiple for the range you have. Once you have those set of intervals, most people seem to find it a pain in the butt to refer to them as the interval 2.412 – 2.417. Hence the creation of a channel map. For the interval I just mentioned, in 802.11 parlor that is Channel 1. (Actually the above could be slightly wrong if 2.412 is the center frequency for Channel 1 but the general idea is the same). So now we can just say channel 1 or 4 or 8 and people can reference the channel map and figure out what’s what. This works for TV as well. Of course the tricky thing is most folk don’t know where to find this channel map most of the times as this data might be floating around SOMEWHERE but it’s usually not under an easy name to find unless you’re a RF junkie.

I ALREADY KNOW WHAT A CHANNEL PLAN IS, SHOW ME THE MONEY

Now that I’ve given a brief overview of what a Wireless Channel Plan here’s the channel plan for 802.11 and the countries which can use which set of channels. Thanks to this link for the channel map.

Link to where I got the channel map. Many thanks!!

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