802.11 frame types


In the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN protocols, a MAC frame is constructed of common fields and specific fields.
The very first two octets transmitted by a station are the Frame Control. The first three subfields within the frame control and the last field are always present in all types of 802.11 frames. These three subfields consist of two bits Protocol Version subfield, two bits [|Type] subfield, and four bits [|Subtype] subfield.

Frame control

The first three fields in the Frame Control field are always present. The fields, in their order of appearance in transmission, are:
  1. Protocol Version
  2. Type
  3. Subtype
  4. To-DS
  5. From-DS
  6. More-Fragments
  7. Retry
  8. Power Management
  9. More Data
  10. Protected frame
  11. +HTC/order

    Protocol version subfield

The two-bit protocol version subfield is set to 0 for WLAN and 1 for IEEE 802.11ah. The revision level is incremented only when there is a fundamental incompatibility between two versions of the standard. PV1 description is incorporated in the latest 802.11-2020 standard.

Types and subtypes

Action frames

Action frames extend management frames to control a certain action. Some of the action categories are QoS, Block Ack, Public, Radio Measurement, Fast BSS Transition, Mesh Peering Management, etc. These frames are sent by a station when it needs to tell its peer for a certain action to be taken.
For example, a station can tell another station to set up a block acknowledgement by sending an ADDBA Request action frame. The other station would then respond with an ADDBA Response action frame.
Wi-Fi Neighbor Awareness Networking, also known as Wi-Fi Aware, service discovery frames are NAN-specific public action frames. They are used in Remote ID for example.

ToDS and FromDS

ToDS is one bit in length and set to 1 if destined to Distribution System, while FromDS is a one-bit length that is set to 1 if originated from Distribution System.

Retry

Set to 1 if the Data or Management frame is part retransmission of the earlier frame. This bit is reused for different purpose in Control frame.

Protected frame

Set to 1 if the Management Frame is protected by encryption as described in IEEE_802.11w-2009.

+HTC/order

It is one bit in length and is used for two purposes:
  • It is set to 1 in a non-QoS data frame transmitted by a non-QoS WLAN station to indicate the frame being transmitted is using Strictly-Ordered service class.
  • It is set to 1 in a QoS data or management frame transmitting at HT or higher rate to indicate that the frame contains HT Control field