58
network ID and the host ID. Because IP
addresses are difficult to remember, they usually
have an associated domain name that can be
specified instead. See domain name, network
mask.
ISP
Internet Service Provider
A company that provides Internet access to its
customers, usually for a fee.
LAN
Local Area Network.
A network limited to a small geographic area,
such as a home or small office.
LED
Light Emitting Diode
An electronic light-emitting device. The indicator
lights on the front of the device are LEDs.
MAC address
Media Access Control address
The permanent hardware address of a device,
assigned by its manufacturer. MAC addresses are
expressed as six pairs of hex characters, with
each pair separated by colons. For example;
NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN.
Mask
See network mask.
Mbps
Abbreviation for Megabits per second, or one
million bits per second. Network data rates are
often expressed in Mbps.
NAT
Network Address Translation
A service performed by many routers that
translates your network‘s publicly known IP
address into a private IP address for each
computer on your LAN. Only your router and your
LAN know these addresses; the outside world
sees only the public IP address when talking to a
computer on your LAN.
Network
A group of computers that are connected
together, allowing them to communicate with each
other and share resources, such as software,
files, etc. A network can be small, such as a LAN,
or very large, such as the Internet.
Network keys
(Also known as encryption keys.) 64-bit and 128-
bit encryption keys used in WEP wireless security
schemes. The keys encrypt data over the WLAN,
and only wireless PCs configured with WEP keys
that correspond to the keys configured on the
device can send/receive encrypted data.
Network mask
A network mask is a sequence of bits applied to
an IP address to select the network ID while
ignoring the host ID. Bits set to 1 mean "select this
bit" while bits set to 0 mean "ignore this bit." For
example, if the network mask 255.255.255.0 is
applied to the IP address 100.10.50.1, the
network ID is 100.10.50, and the host ID is 1. See
binary, IP address, subnet.
