ZyXEL Communications NWA-3550, User Manual

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Chapter 1 Introducing the NWA
NWA-3500/NWA-3550 User’s Guide
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1.2.2 Bridge / Repeater
The NWA can act as a wireless network bridge and establish wireless links with
other APs. In the figure below, the two NWAs (
A and B ) are connected to
independent wired networks and have a bridge connection ( A can communicate
with B ) at the same time. A NWA in repeater mode ( C in Figure 3) has no Ethernet
connection. When the NWA is in bridge mode, you should enable Spanning Tree
Protocol (STP) to prevent bridge loops.
When the NWA is in Bridge / Repeater mode, security between APs (the Wireless
Distribution System or WDS) is independent of the security between the wireless
stations and the AP. If you do not enable WDS security, traffic between APs is not
encrypted. When WDS security is enabled, both APs must use the same pre-
shared key. See
Section 8.2.2 on page 127 for more details.
Once the security settings of peer sides match one another, the connection
between devices is made.
At the time of writing, WDS security is compatible with other ZyXEL access points
only. Refer to your other access point’s documentation for details.
Figure 2 Bridge Application
A
B