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802.11g is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless local area networks (WLANs), commonly known as Wi-Fi. Released in 2003, it was a significant improvement over the older 802.11b standard, offering faster speeds while maintaining backward compatibility.

Key features of 802.11g

Speed: It supports a maximum theoretical data rate of 54 megabits per second (Mbps), a five-fold increase over the 11 Mbps limit of 802.11b. In practice, real-world speeds were closer to 24-31 Mbps.

Frequency band: Like 802.11b, it operates in the 2.4 GHz frequency band. This provides a good signal range, but the band is also susceptible to interference from other household devices like microwave ovens, Bluetooth devices, and cordless phones.

Modulation: To achieve faster speeds in the 2.4 GHz band, 802.11g adopted the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation scheme, which was first used by the 802.11a standard.

Backward compatibility: It was designed to be fully backward compatible with older 802.11b hardware. However, when a legacy 802.11b device connects to an 802.11g network, the entire network's speed is slowed down to accommodate the older standard.

Retroactive naming: Over time, 802.11g was retroactively labeled as Wi-Fi 3 by the Wi-Fi Alliance.