The first wireless standard to be defined in the 802 family was 802.11. It was approved by the IEEE in 1997, and defines three possible physical layers: FHSS at 2.4GHz, DSSS at 2.4GHz, and Infrared.
802.11 could achieve data rates of 1 or 2Mbps. 802.11 radios that use DSSS are interoperable with 802.11b and 802.11g radios at those speeds, while FHSS radios and Infrared are obviously not.
The IEEE has a number of working groups responsible for developing open standards. These open standards are available for any manufacturer to use, hopefully ensuring competition and volume production. The IEEE has developed the 802.11x and 802.16 standards, and as of July 2003 has a working group developing the 802.20 standard.
Each of these standards is designed with a certain utility and limitations in mind. For example 802.11b was designed as a short-range wireless Ethernet replacement. While it can be used for other applications (such as community networks) it is not optimized for this type of service, and will never perform as well as a technology that was designed from the ground up to address the unique issues found in a community network.
802.11x, also sometimes known as Wi-Fi, is an IEEE certified wireless networking standard that currently includes the IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g specifications. In the U.S., the RF emission of these devices is governed by FCC Part 15 rules. These rules govern the power output, equipment and antenna configurations useable in the unlicensed bands.
802.11x is an extension of wired Ethernet, bringing Ethernet-like principles to wireless communication. As such, 802.11 is agnostic about the kinds of data that pass over it. It’s primarily used for TCP/IP, but can also handle other forms of networking traffic, such as AppleTalk or NetBEUI.