Decoding an IEEE 802 project number

IEEE SA has a number of standards committees, e.g. 802, 1588, etc.  IEEE 802 is one of the standards committees that is focused on the development of standards for LANs and MANs (local and metropolitan area networks).  Within IEEE 802,  802.1 is the HILI (higher layer interface) working group.  It deals with standards that are MAC layer independent.  In contrast, other working groups in the IEEE 802 work on MAC layer specific standards.  For example, 802.3 work on standards for Ethernet, 802.11 works on standards for WiFi, and 802.16 works on standards for WiMax.  IEEE 802.1 is also responsible for standards designated 802, indicating that they apply to all IEEE 802.1 working groups.  An example is the IEEE 802 Overview & Architecture standard.

In IEEE 802, projects and the subsequent standard are typically denoted IEEE 802.NXy.

• IEEE indicates that it is an IEEE standard.
• 802 indicates it was developed by the LAN/MAN Standards Committee.
• N is numeric and denotes the working group in which the standard was developed.  For instance, 802.1 indicates a standard developed in the "dot 1" working group which deals with MAC layer independent standards.  N is omitted only for standards that span all working groups which are typically architecture documents.
• X is one or more uppercase letters.  It is optional.  If present, it indicates the base standard.  Some working groups, e.g. IEEE 802.3, have just one big document.  In that case, the uppercase letters are not needed and are omitted.  In the case of IEEE 802.1, there are multiple base standards, e.g. IEEE 802.1D, IEEE 8021.Q, IEEE 802.1AB, etc.
• y is one or more lowercase letters.  Lowercase letters indicate that this project is an amendment to some base standard.  Prior to circa 2006, the base standard of the project was not clear because the concept of using X along with y was not in use; either X or y was used.  So, earlier, we had standards like 802.1p and 802.1ah (which indicated they were amendments to a base standard, but not the base standard to which they applied, which in these cases were 802.1D and 802.1Q respectively).  Later, X and y were used together so we now have projects such as 802.1Qbg and 802.1ASbt (which are amendments to 802.1Q and 802.1AS respectively).

Sometimes,  a project or a standard will simply be called IEEE 802.NX-REV, indicating that the project is a revision of a standard IEEE 802.1NX previously developed.  For example, we have projects such as 802.1Q-REV and 802.1AX-REV.

Finally, there are corrigenda projects which are called IEEE 802.1NX-Cor-M.  The 'Cor' indicates that it is a corrigendum.  The '-M', M being numeric, indicates the number of the corrigendum in case more than one is needed.

If a project is a new base document, it is published independently and remains an independent document forever.  If the project is an amendment, it is initially published as an independent document and then subsequently rolled into the base document when it is revised.  IEEE requires that revisions be done at a certain interval before new amendment projects are authorized.