Resources for Learning 802.11 in 2025

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One component of my business is teaching Wi-Fi classes. Often when I teach a class I’m asked for recommendations for learning one Wi-Fi topic or another. I decided I should gather all my recommendations and suggestions together in one spot so they can be shared with community and not just my students. So, without further ado below are a series of resources that I recommend for improving your Wi-Fi skills and studying for some certifications. Full disclosure, some of these are affiliate links, but I stand behind all these recommendations and they aren’t just here to get affiliate clicks. Most of these I have personally used for my own studies.

Note: If you just want the list without the commentary, scroll to the bottom.

Getting Started in Wi-Fi

The best way to get started with Wi-Fi is to use the CWNA certification from CWNP. The Certified Wireless Network Professional program is all about teaching you how 802.11 works in a vendor neutral fashion. I recommend CWNA as the first step before pursuing and vendor certification because it helps you understand how the protocols work and makes any Wi-Fi vendor certification easier. My favorite book for CWNA prep and just as a general Wi-Fi reference is the Certified Wireless Network Administrator Study Guide by David Coleman and David Westcott. Even if you aren’t interested in the cert, it’s highly recommended for understanding Wi-Fi and as a reference.

Diving Deeper

If you want to really dive into the different protocols, I still like the old books from Matthew Gast, starting with 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide. As long as you grab the second edition, that’ll get you through 802.11n (aka Wi-Fi 4). Follow that up with 802.11ac: A Survival Guide, which is a smaller book cover Wi-Fi 5. Lastly, pick up Wi-Fi 7 In Depth, which is not by Gast, to pick up your 802.11ax and 802.11be (Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7) specifics. Wi-Fi loves backwards compatibility and all of these iterations of the protocol are still usable and most are still in use. This is a good way to build up your Wi-Fi knowledge and help you understand better where things came from, where they are going, and why. I also think it’ll help give you a better understanding of when upgrading is important and when it is not.

Wi-Fi Security

If you are interested in Wi-Fi security, especially if you are trying to figure out and plan a migration to WPA3, my recommendation is Wireless Security Architecture by JJ Minella. It’s an excellent book reflecting practical real world experience and is the best book on Wi-Fi security currently available. I’ve not seen anything quite like this one before and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Podcasts

For you audio learners, I have two podcasts to recommend: Clear to Send and Heavy Wireless. Clear to Send has a lot of very educational episodes covering specific components of Wi-Fi and Heavy Wireless focusses more on current topics and interviews with people using and deploying Wi-Fi. Both are worth your time.

Also worth noting is Wi-Fi for Beginners. This 21-episode series is just what it sounds like, Wi-Fi for beginners!

Videos

If you haven’t had a chance to attend The WLPC, I recommend trying to go. It’s a conference by Wi-Fi people for Wi-Fi people. However, if you can’t make it most of the talks given at the conference are recorded and posted for free on Youtube. The WLAN Professionals channel has all of these and is a great place to learn just about any Wi-Fi topic. Just search for what you are looking for in the channel’s search and you’re pretty much guaranteed to find a whole list of presentations from the last 10 years of conferences on your topic.

Vendor Specific Recommendations

Ekahau

Since I teach Ekahau ECSE courses, I have to start by suggesting that path. We teach three different Wi-Fi courses:

  • ECSE Design, which is focused on how to design good Wi-Fi using Ekahau AI Pro.
  • ECSE Troubleshooting, which is focused on understanding how Wi-Fi works and using Ekahau tools and Wireshark to figure out what’s going on. This course is better if you take the design course first, but it’s not required.
  • ECSE Advanced, which is an advanced course on using Ekahau tools. This has ECSE Design certification as a prerequisite, so it’s probably not applicable if you are just getting started.

Cisco

The Cisco Live conference is a great conference for Cisco users, though the amount of Wi-Fi specific content tends to be relatively low. However, they post videos in the Cisco Live On-Demand Library of many excellent sessions that I find to be a good resource, especially for understanding Cisco’s hardware.

If pursuing Cisco Certs, Wireless content is mostly mixed into the curriculum now days. However, you can choose to pursue the Wireless Design (ENWLSD 300-425) and Wireless Implementation (ENWLSI 300-430) specialist certifications as part of earning your CCNP Enterprise certification. While I have not read this particular book myself, the authors are excellent and I feel perfectly comfortable recommending the CCNP Enterprise Wireless Design ENWLSD 300-425 and Implementation ENWLSI 300-430 Official Cert Guide as a resource for Cisco users.

Aruba

I have no Aruba certs and don’t work with Aruba very much, so my expertise here is limited. However, HPE Discover is a the conference for Aruba solutions and the Airheads tracks are where you want to be for the Wi-Fi knowledge. Historically, it has seemed there are a lot of Wi-Fi sessions at the Aruba conference, but they don’t post the videos for those. They do, however, have a pretty Airheads Community online. The Aruba Networking Technical certifications page is where to find out about their training and certifications.

Juniper Mist

Juniper Mist has a lot of great free content that anyone can learn from just by signing up for a free account. Go to the Mist management portal, sign up for a free account, then click on the courses button after you login. Lots of great content there. If you are an actual Mist AI user, there’s the Deploying and Managing Juniper Wireless Networks with Mist AI course which spends a good amount of time on understanding Wi-Fi before getting into the details of managing a Mist network.

Summary

If you have recommendations for a particular vendor or other resources you have found helpful, please let me know and I’ll add them to this collection.

Here’s all the resources mentioned above in a short list:

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