USB-N66 WLAN Adapter User Manual 
COFDM (for 802.11a or 802.11g)
Signal power alone is not enough to maintain 802.11b-like distances in an 802.11a/g environment. To compensate, a new physical-layer encoding technology was designed that departs from the traditional direct-sequence technology being deployed today. This technology is called COFDM (coded OFDM). COFDM was developed specifically for indoor wireless use and offers performance much superior to that of spread-spectrum solutions. COFDM works by breaking one high-speed data carrier into several lowerspeed subcarriers, which are then transmitted in parallel. Each high-speed carrier is 20MHz wide and is broken up into 52 subchannels, each approximately 300KHz wide. COFDM uses 48 of these subchannels for data, while the remaining four are used for error correction. COFDM delivers higher data rates and a high degree of multipath reflection recovery, thanks to its encoding scheme and error correction.
Each subchannel in the COFDM implementation is about 300KHz wide. At the low end of the speed gradient, BPSK (binary phase shift keying) is used to encode 125Kbps of data per channel, resulting in a 6,000Kbps, or 6Mbps, data rate. Using quadrature phase shift keying, you can double the amount of data encoded to 250Kbps per channel, yielding a 12Mbps data rate. And by using 16-level quadrature amplitude modulation encoding 4bits per hertz, you can achieve a data rate of 24Mbps. The 802.11a/g standard specifies that all 802.11a/g-compliant products must support these basic data rates. The standard also lets the vendor extend the modulation scheme beyond 24Mbps. Remember, the more bits per cycle (hertz) that are encoded, the more susceptible the signal will be to interference and fading, and ultimately, the shorter the range, unless power output is increased.
Default Key
This option allows you to select the default WEP key. This option allows you to use WEP keys without having to remember or write them down. The WEP keys generated using the Pass Phrase is compatible with other WLAN products. The Pass Phrase option is not as secure as manual assignment.
Device Name
Also known as DHCP client ID or network name. Sometimes provided by an ISP when using DHCP to assign addresses.
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
This protocol allows a computer (or many computers on your network) to be automatically assigned a single IP address from a DHCP server.
