Wireless Network Access Point

Wireless Access Point

The IEEE fosters the development of standards that often become national and international standards. The organization publishes a number of journals, has many local chapters, and several large societies in special areas, such as the IEEE Computer Society.

Infrastructure - An infrastructure network is a wireless network or other small network in which the wireless network devices are made a part of the network through the Access Point which connects them to the rest of the network.

IP Address - In the most widely installed level of the Internet Protocol (Internet Protocol) today, an IP address is a 32-binary digit number that identi- fies each sender or receiver of information that is sent in packet across the Internet. When you request an HTML page or send e-mail, the Internet Protocol part of TCP/IP includes your IP address in the message (actually, in each of the packets if more than one is required) and sends it to the IP address that is obtained by looking up the domain name in the Uniform Resource Locator you requested or in the e-mail address you're sending a note to. At the other end, the recipient can see the IP address of the Web page requestor or the e-mail sender and can respond by sending another message using the IP address it received.

ISM band - The FCC and their counterparts outside of the U.S. have set aside bandwidth for unlicensed use in the ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band. Spectrum in the vicinity of 2.4 GHz, in particular, is being made avail- able worldwide. This presents a truly revolutionary opportunity to place con- venient high-speed wireless capabilities in the hands of users around the globe.

LAN - A local area network (LAN) is a group of computers and associated devices that share a common communications line and typically share the resources of a single processor or server within a small geographic area (for example, within an office building).

MAC (Media Access Control) Address - A unique number assigned by the manufacturer to any Ethernet networking device, such as a network adapter, that allows the network to identify it at the hardware level.

Mbps (MegaBits Per Second) - One million bits per second; unit of measure- ment for data transmission.

Multicasting - Sending data to a group of nodes instead of a single destination.

Network - A system that transmits any combination of voice, video and/or data between users.

Node - A network junction or connection point, typically a computer or work station.

OFDM - OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Muliplexing) works by breaking one high-speed data stream into a number of lower-speed data streams, which are then transmitted in parallel. Each lower speed stream is used to modulate a subcarrier. Essentially, this creates a multi-carrier transmission by dividing a wide frequency band or channel into a number of narrower fre- quency bands or sub-channels.

Packet - A unit of data routed between an origin and a destination in a network.

Passphrase - Used much like a password, a passphrase simplifies the WEP encryption process by automatically generating the WEP encryption keys for Linksys products.

PC Card - A credit-card sized removable module that contains memory, I/O, or a hard disk.

Port - A pathway into and out of the computer or a network device such as a switch or router. For example, the serial and parallel ports on a personal com- puter are external sockets for plugging in communications lines, modems and printers.

RJ-45(Registered Jack-45) - A connector similar to a telephone connector that holds up to eight wires, used for connecting Ethernet devices.

Roaming - The ability to use a wireless device and be able to move from one access point's range to another without losing the connection.

Router - Protocol-dependent device that connects subnetworks together. Routers are useful in breaking down a very large network into smaller subnet- works; they introduce longer delays and typically have much lower throughput rates than bridges.

RTS (Request To Send) - An RS-232 signal sent from the transmitting station to the receiving station requesting permission to transmit.