Shankar K.
Wi-Fi engineer · 15 years · Irving, TX
15 years across Wi-Fi protocol analysis, OTT streaming QA, and broadband gateway qualification. I've spent my career at the layer where the spec meets the hardware. They don't always agree.
Currently qualifying Wi-Fi 7 gateways: 802.11be, MLO mode negotiation, 320 MHz preamble puncturing, r-TWT service periods, EHT beacon capabilities. The problems at this layer are new. That's where I want to be working.
15 years of 802.11 protocol analysis, OTT streaming QA, and broadband gateway qualification. Deep protocol work combined with application-layer QoE is what eventually became WiFi Analyser.
Expensive tools shouldn't be the only path to protocol-level insight. A good engineer with a free capture tool and deep spec knowledge beats a bad engineer with AirMagnet every time.
When AirMagnet went end-of-life in December 2025, engineers lost their primary PCAP analysis tool overnight. I built WiFi Analyser so no one has to go without. It's free. It will stay free.
Pursuing CWNA-109, then CWAP, then CWNE. Certifications don't replace experience, but they sharpen how you articulate what you already know.
I spend most of my free time figuring out how to make 802.11 protocol concepts click. The spec is dense, the failure modes are subtle, and most engineers learn by reading Wireshark output until something makes sense. Everything I work out ends up on shankarwifi.com as interactive visualizers, reference pages, and frame-level walkthroughs.
I don't ask a model to guess what a PMK-R0 failure looks like on the wire. Fifteen years of 802.11 means I already know. AI accelerates me because I understand what I'm building before I accept a single output.
Before writing a single line of detection logic, I read the IEEE 802.11 spec. I trace frame structures, understand field definitions at the byte level, and know what a malformed RSN IE looks like before I write a detector for it. That literacy is the foundation. It's what separates a working parser from a heuristic that breaks on real traffic.
suite_selector = OUI + suite_type
// 00:0F:AC:12 → 192-bit → GCMP-256 mandatory
I don't surface findings that can't be defended. Every anomaly WiFi Analyser flags, whether a deauth flood, an EAPOL timeout, or a rogue AP with a mismatched OUI, maps back to a named IEEE clause or CVE reference. Not a heuristic. Not a threshold pulled from thin air. A verifiable protocol deviation with a citation.
if ssid_match && bssid_oui_mismatch
&& rssi_delta > threshold && channel_conflict:
flag(CVE‑2022‑47522, confidence=HIGH)
AI-assisted analysis ships under my name. I verify every detection against real captures, trace false positives to the root cause, and fix the logic, not the label. When a field engineer at a device vendor reported an RSN IE false positive, I traced it to the AKM OUI, patched the classifier, and shipped the fix the same week.
// before: flag on cipher mismatch alone
// after: cross-ref AssocReq + Beacon AKM OUI
verified: 47/47 live sweep · 31 MB real PCAP
shankarwifi.com is FANTASTIC - I'm going to share it with the WLPC community.
I like the creative format and structure of the knowledge.
Both quotes used with permission · April 2026
Single-file Astro components with zero dependencies. Each visualizer anchors an 802.11 spec concept in something you can actually manipulate.
Browser-based 802.11 PCAP intelligence. 212+ protocol checks. Free. No install. The AirMagnet alternative built for 2026.
Questions about a PCAP? Something you found in a frame you can't explain? Wi-Fi 7 behavior that doesn't match the spec?
feedback@wlananalyser.com →