Linksys WPC11 manual Instant Wireless Series

Instant Wireless® Series

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.

PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) - An industry group organized in 1989 to promote standards for a credit card-size memory or I/O device that would fit into a personal computer, usually a note- book or laptop computer.

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.

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.

Software - Instructions for the computer. A series of instructions that performs a particular task is called a "program." The two major categories of software are "system software" and "application software." System software is made up of control programs such as the operating system and database management sys- tem (DBMS). Application software is any program that processes data for the user.

A common misconception is that software is data. It is not. Software tells the hardware how to process the data.

SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) - Market segment of professionals who work at home or in small offices.

Wireless-B Notebook Adapter

Spread Spectrum - Spread Spectrum technology is a wideband radio frequen- cy technique developed by the military for use in reliable, secure, mission-crit- ical communications systems. It is designed to trade off bandwidth efficiency for reliability, integrity, and security. In other words, more bandwidth is con- sumed than in the case of narrowband transmission, but the trade off produces a signal that is, in effect, louder and thus easier to detect, provided that the receiver knows the parameters of the spread-spectrum signal being broadcast. If a receiver is not tuned to the right frequency, a spread-spectrum signal looks like background noise. There are two main alternatives, Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) and Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS).

Subnet Mask - The method used for splitting IP networks into a series of sub- groups, or subnets. The mask is a binary pattern that is matched up with the IP address to turn part of the host ID address field into a field for subnets.

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) - A method (protocol) used along with the IP (Internet Protocol) to send data in the form of message units (datagram) between network devices over a LAN or WAN. While IP takes care of handling the actual delivery of the data (routing), TCP takes care of keeping track of the individual units of data (called packets) that a message is divided into for effi- cient delivery over the network. TCP is known as a "connection oriented" pro- tocol due to requiring the receiver of a packet to return an acknowledgment of receipt to the sender of the packet resulting in transmission control.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) - The basic com- munication language or set of protocols for communications over a network (developed specifically for the Internet). TCP/IP defines a suite or group of protocols and not only TCP and IP.

Throughput - The amount of data moved successfully from one place to anoth- er in a given time period.

Topology - A network's topology is a logical characterization of how the devices on the network are connected and the distances between them. The most common network devices include hubs, switches, routers, and gateways. Most large networks contain several levels of interconnection, the most impor- tant of which include edge connections, backbone connections, and wide-area connections.

WAN (Wide Area Network)- A communications network that covers a rela- tively large geographic area, consisting of two or more LANs. Broadband com- munication over the WAN is often through public networks such as the tele-

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