P-Com AirPro Gold, Hardware Installation Manual

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Hardware Installation Guide 2-1
2
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W
IRELESS
N
ETWORK
D
ESIGN
The term network topology refers to the logical layout of a network. It
defines how the network elements will communicate with each other,
how the information will be transmitted, and how the information will
be routed through the network.
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P A C K E T - B A S E D N E T W O R K S
Packet-based networks are most suitable for networks that involve large-
scale data transmissions for multiple users at the same time. There is a
guaranteed minimum throughput for a packet-based network, but the
actual throughput realized by a packet-based network node will depend
on
• the number of users in the network, and
• how much traffic is being generated by each node at any given time
The advantage of a packet-based network is that multiple transmissions
can travel along the network at the same time, using whatever path is
appropriate to the routing from the source to the destination.
The most significant characteristic of packet-based networks is the
wireless interface access protocols they use, such as CSMA/CA (Carrier
Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance), which can result in more
efficient use of the aggregate bandwidth by dynamically allocating
throughput to nodes based on demand.
AirPro Gold
®
supports Point-to-Point, Peer-to-Peer, and Centralized
(Star) packet-based network topologies. Each topology has its own
optimized wireless protocol.
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P O I N T - T O - P O I N T T O P O L O G Y
In a packet-based point-to-point topology, two nodes are linked directly.
The most common application for this topology is the interconnection of