IBM PCMCIA Card user manual Troubleshooting, C h a p t e r, ü What is the IEEE 802.11b standard

Wireless LAN PCMCIA Card

C h a p t e r

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Troubleshooting

This section provides solutions to problems usually encountered during the installation and operation of this Wireless PCMCIA Card. Read the description below to solve your problems.

üWhat is the IEEE 802.11b standard

The IEEE 802.11b Wireless LAN standard subcommittee which formulates the standard for the industry. The objective is to enable wireless LAN hardware from different manufactures to communicate.

üWhat does IEEE 802.11 feature support

The product supports the following IEEE 802.11 functions:

•CSMA/CA plus Acknowledge Protocol

•Multi-Channel Roaming

•Automatic Rate Selection

•RTS/CTS Feature

•Fragmentation

•Power Management

üWhat is Ad-hoc

An Ad-hoc integrated wireless LAN is a group of computers, each has a Wireless LAN adapter, Connected as an independent wireless LAN. Ad hoc wireless LAN is applicable at a departmental scale for a branch or SOHO operation.

üWhat is Infrastructure

An integrated wireless and wireless and wired LAN is called an Infrastructure configuration. Infrastructure is applicable to enterprise scale for wireless access to central database, or wireless application for mobile workers.

üWhat is BSS ID

A specific Ad hoc LAN is called a Basic Service Set (BSS). Computers in a BSS must be configured with the same BSS ID.

üWhat is WEP

WEP is Wired Equivalent Privacy, a data privacy mechanism based on a 40 bit shared key algorithm, as described in the IEEE 802 .11 standard.

üCan Wireless products support printer sharing

Wireless products perform the same function as LAN products. Therefore, Wireless products can work with Netware, Windows NT/2000, or other LAN operating systems to support printer or file sharing.

üWould the information be intercepted while transmitting on air

WLAN features two-fold protection in security. On the hardware side, as with Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum technology, it has the inherent security feature of scrambling. On the software side, WLAN series offer the encryption function (WEP) to enhance security and Access Control. Users can set it up depending upon their needs.

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