802.11

WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS

The Working Group for WLAN Standards

Upcoming sessions

2026 January IEEE 802W Interim Session January 11-16, 2026 Victoria Conference Centre Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Register to attend (in-person or remote)

The meetings between now and the upcoming session will be held by teleconference.

Recent ballots and comment collections

ID Type Stage Project Draft Open Close Status
LB292 WG Ballot Recirc P802.11bi D3.0 2025-11-25 2025-12-12 Instructions
Close is at 23:59 ET on the date indicated.

Recent activities

At the 2025 November plenary session, 802.11 made progress in the following areas:

  • TGbi (Enhanced Privacy Protection) completed comment resolution on D2.0 and will start a WG recirc ballot on D3.0 shortly.
  • TGmf (Maintenance revision) continued comment resolution from LB289 on D1.0. The group has an ad-hoc meeting scheduled for December to continue the same. The next revision of the draft (D2.0) will have IEEE Std 802.11bk-2025 and IEEE Std 802.11bf-2025 rolled in.
  • TGbn (Ultra-High Reliability, aka Wi-Fi 8) has resolved around 700 of the 8500+ comments received during LB291 on D1.0. Comment resolution continues.
  • TGbp (Ambient Power Communications) further updated their spec framework document. While a D0.2 will be made available following the session, comment collection is deferred until the spec is more mature.
  • TGbq (Integrated mmWave) reviewed technical contributions. The group is working toward an initial spec framework document for January 2026.
  • TGbt (Post-Quantum Cryptography) reviewed numerous technical contributions. There was significant interest and participation in the work of this group.
  • TGbr (Enhanced Light Communications) reviewed technical contribution, including one on underwater performance and operations over the water-air-barrier.
  • The AIML standing committee continues to monitor and review artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) concepts that may be ripe for standardization. Two contributions on multi-link operation and one on AI/ML assisted roaming were reviewed.
  • The automotive topic interest group (AUTO TIG) is wrapping up their report on the automotive use of Wi-Fi. The group will report back to the WG once completed. This is expected in January 2026 or, possibly, March 2026.

A more detailed report is available here.

802.11 members Jerome Henry, Brian Hart, Binita Gupta and Malcolm Smith have written a detailed guide to IEEE Std 802.11be-2024, known in the industry as Wi-Fi 7.

Recent standards approvals

IEEE Std 802.11bf™-2025 was published on September 26, 2025.

IEEE Std 802.11bk™-2025 was published on September 5, 2025.

IEEE Std 802.11be™-2024 was published on July 22, 2025.

IEEE Std 802.11bh™-2024 was published on June 3, 2025.

IEEE Std 802.11™-2024 was published on April 28, 2025.

"Click Here" for IEEE 802 Free Standards

The IEEE has made available IEEE 802 standards for free download. Under this program, a standard may be downloaded for free six months after the initial publication of the standard. All relevant IEEE 802.11 Standard, Amendments, and Recommended Practices are listed.

Access to 802.11 draft standards

Draft standards are available from a number of sources:

  • If you are a voting 802.11 member, go to the members' area and log in using the 802.11 members ID and password supplied to you by the 802.11 officers.  Contact Robert Stacey if you have lost this. During an 802.11 session, attendees may access 802.11 draft standards from a local fileserver, regardless of their membership status.
  • If you are an active member of one of the other 802 groups, you may be able to access the 802.11 members' area using the same credentials used to access your own group. If this doesn't work, ask your group's Chair to request access from the 802.11 Chair (Robert Stacey).
  • Draft IEEE standards are, from time to time, made available for purchase using the IEEE store or Techstreet.

IEEE standards development guide

The IEEE-SA has created an easy to use Online Standards Development web site that has a wealth of information that details the whole standards process flow, from creation of the initial PAR, to balloting to final draft, and beyond. It even includes, tutorials, and online forms of the various processes evolved. This site is recommended for all Members and Chairs involved.

Upcoming meetings

A google calendar (embedded below) is maintained for 802.11 meetings.

You can import the calendar as an iCal file, or use the "Add to Google Calendar" at the bottom right of the calendar below.

The 802 calendar, which contains the 802 meetings and also rolls up the working group calendars, is available here.