Revision of IEEE Std 802.1X-2001 Port-based network access control makes use of the physical access characteristics of IEEE 802 Local Area Networks (LAN) infrastructures in order to provide a means of authenticating and authorizing devices attached to a LAN port that has point-to-point connection characteristics, and of preventing access to that port in cases in which the authentication and authorization process fails.

The scope of this project is the use of the physical access characteristics of IEEE 802 LANs in order to provide a means of authenticating and authorizing devices attached to a LAN port. The reason for revising the standard is to reflect editorial and technical corrections, and to better facilitate its use in 802.11 Wireless LANs.

The standard provides common interoperable solutions using standards based authentication and authorization infrastructures already supporting schemes such as dial up access. Revision is needed in order to deal with editorial and technical corrections, and also to reflect changes necessary in the light of deployment in 802.11-based infrastructures.