A Wireless LAN (WLAN) standard that is a faster, more secure successor to 802.11b. Note that this is not a typo. In this one case 802.11a comes AFTER 802.11b. 802.11a has data rates of 54 MBits per second (compared to 11 MBits per second for 802.11b). 802.11a achieves higher data rates because it uses more bandwidth of the radio spectrum. It also operates at a higher frequency.

The planned successor to both 802.11a and 802.11b (at the time of this writing) is 802.11g which is currently mired in standards disagreements and may not see the light of day. If it ever gets off the ground, 802.11g will offer speeds near those of 802.11a while maintaining compatibility with, and using the same radio bandwidth as, 802.11b