I think 802.11-1997 works as 0 in this case. The implication from the Wi-Fi Alliance seems to be they are counting consumer hardware generations, and there doesn't seem to have been much consumer hardware that was directly 802.11-1997 (it took b to get consumer adoption). Which is why the order I've heard that makes the most sense is 1 (b), 2 (a), 3 (g), because that was roughly the consumer hardwave waves, with the brief (a) hardware wave the fun out-of-order one.

a and b were specced at the same time though, so it's really weird to look at a+b+g as anything other than two generations.

That's certainly a fair viewpoint (and reflected together in the spec version 802.11-1999), but the interesting thing about this rebrand is the Wi-Fi Alliance taking a step back, realizing that the individual specs don't matter to consumers and as a consumer brand trying to break away from just using the spec names/versions.

From that perspective A, B, and G were all sold as three separate things to consumers, so it makes sense to count all three.

I think this is why they didn't give the numbers for the early versions

> Or does it share a number with b, because they're the same technology?

802.11b is part of 802.11-1999. 802.11-1997 describes the older Direct Spread (DS) and Frequency-Hopping (FS) standards in 2.4GHz.

802.11a and 802.11b were both ratified on 16 September 1999. 802.11g wasn't ratified until 12 June 2003.

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/802.11_Timelin...

Right, 802.11b extended DSSS used by 802.11-1997 for 1 and 2 Mbps through 5.5 and 11 Mbps rates. No other Wi-Fi standards used DSSS.