Linksys WMP54G manual Instant Wireless Series, Wireless-G Notebook Adapter

Instant Wireless® Series

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 (Local Area Network) - 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.

Motherboard - A motherboard is the physical arrangement in a computer that contains the computer's basic circuitry and components.

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 - Developed for wireless applications, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technology offers superior performance-increased data rates and more reliable transmissions-than previous technologies, such as DSSS. OFDM is a scheme in which numerous signals of different frequencies are combined to form a single signal for transmission on the medium.

OFDM 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 frequency bands or sub-channels. OFDM is also used for other appli- cations, including powerline networking.

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

Wireless-G Notebook Adapter

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

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) - A peripheral bus commonly used in PCs, Macintoshes and workstations. It was designed primarily by Intel and first appeared on PCs in late 1993. PCI provides a high-speed data path between the CPU and peripheral devices (video, disk, network, etc.). There are typically three or four PCI slots on the motherboard. In a Pentium PC, there is generally a mix of PCI and ISA slots or PCI and EISA slots. Early on, the PCI bus was known as a "local bus."

PCI provides "plug and play" capability, automatically configuring the PCI cards at startup. When PCI is used with the ISA bus, the only thing that is gen- erally required is to indicate in the CMOS memory which IRQs are already in use by ISA cards. PCI takes care of the rest.

PCI allows IRQs to be shared, which helps to solve the problem of limited IRQs available on a PC. For example, if there were only one IRQ left over after ISA devices were given their required IRQs, all PCI devices could share it. In a PCI- only machine, there cannot be insufficient IRQs, as all can be shared.

Plug-and-Play- The ability of a computer system to configure expansion boards and other devices automatically without requiring the user to turn off the system during installation.

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.

Roaming - In an infrastructure mode wireless network, this refers to the abili- ty to move out of one access point's range and into another and transparently reassociate and reauthenticate to the new access point. This reassociation and reauthentication should occur without user intervention and ideally without interruption to network connectivity. A typical scenario would be a location with multiple access points, where users can physically relocate from one area to another and easily maintain connectivity.

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

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