Bountiful BWRG1000, User Manual

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Bountiful WiFi User Manual – v1.2.0.060201 Overview – Network terminology
2.1 Network terminology
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WAN – Wide Area Network. A computer network that spans a relatively large geographical area.
Computers connected to a wide-area network are often connected through public networks, such
as the telephone system. The largest WAN in existence is the Internet.
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LAN – Local Area Network. A computer network that spans a relatively small area. Most LANs
are confined to a single building or group of buildings.
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WLAN – Wireless local area network that uses radio waves as its carrier: the last link with the
users is wireless, to give a network connection to all users in the surrounding area. Areas may
range from a single room to an entire campus. The backbone network usually uses cables, with
one or more wireless access points connecting the wireless users to the wired network.
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IP Address – Group of numbers that uniquely identifies each device on a network. The IP
Addresses used commonly on the Internet use four groups of numbers separated by decimals.
Each group can have any value from 0 to 255 but the combination must be unique on the network
that it connects with.
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MAC Address – Media Access Control address; also called Ethernet Address is a unique 48-bit
hexadecimal identifier attached to most forms of networking equipment. This address is usually
assigned to a device when it is manufactured.
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ISP – Internet Service Provider such as cable company, telephone company or any company that
provides Internet access.
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Modem – Device that connects to the line that supplies Internet access, i.e. cable, DSL,
telephone or T1 line. Some modem connections are manually setup with a static IP and others
use auto configuration with dynamic IP.
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Router – Device that allows multiple computers to access a single internet connection through
wired and/or wireless networks. This device typically connects one WAN to one or more LAN
ports. It allows multiple computers on the LAN to share one WAN connection.
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Access point – Device that serves as the WiFi base station allowing wireless access to the wired
network. Used to extend the wired LAN onto the WLAN.
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Switch/Hub – Device that provides a common connection point for network cables.
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Gateway – Device that combines the functionality of Modem/Router and sometimes Switch/Hub
into one device. This device provides an interface between the LAN computers and the WAN
network. LAN computers must be configured to send all packets destined for the WAN to the
Gateway device.
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DNS Server – Also called Name Server. Server that can help resolve a domain name (eg.
www.BountifulWiFi.com) into the IP Address (eg. 64.90.199.115) of the computer that will
respond to requests for that domain name. Each computer on an IP network must know the
address of two DNS servers (primary and secondary) so they can lookup addresses for domain
names.
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BWiFi – Bountiful WiFi Router which can be configured to have the functionality of an Access
Point, Router and/or Switch/Hub.
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