Observer®Software and WirelessLANs
8ObserverUser Manual Addendum(Wireless)
New Features for WirelessSupport
Inaddition to decoding and analyzing 802.11b wirelessLANs (WLANs),
Observerhas updated a number o fs tatisticalmodes and added some new
ones. These new and updated features are described in the sections that
follow.

Wireless AccessPoint Statistics (New Mode)

Thismode is available on the
Statistics
menu whenever Observeris analyzing
through a wireless dev ice or Probe.
TheAccess Point Statistics mode shows traffic passing through any Access Points
(APs)visible to the Observer wireless NIC. This mode is an all-purpose tool for
maintainingperformance and security on a WLAN that uses APs, showing you:
• Wirelessstations that are connected to an AP
• Non-wiredstations that they communicate with
• Levelsof signal strength, quality, data transferrates, and non-data
transferrates on each station on the access point
• AP traffic totals
Forexample, you can immediately see ifthere is a station connected to the
wrong AP,or if an unauthorized A P has been installed. AP statistics will
display whether a station has a problem with quality or rang e of connection
based on the number of reassociations and retransmissions, or whether a
stationis misconfigured based on stationpoll totals.
The table below describes each statistic.
Notethat some columns are turnedoff by default; right click on the
columnheading to set whichstatistics you want to display.
Statistic Description
Access Point The MAC address of the Access P oint for this row of statistics .
Station TheMAC address oralias of the stationcommunicating with theAP.
Type The type of device connected to th e AP: aa wireless station, a station
(unwired),or another AccessPoint.
AvgStrength( %) Theaverage strengthof the signal, expressedas a percentage of the
optimumstrength.