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Glossary
Access Point:
An internetworking device that seamlessly connects wired and wireless networks.
Ad-Hoc:
An independent wireless LAN network formed by a group of computers, each with a network
adapter.
ASCII:
American Standard Code for Information Interchange, ASCII, is one of the two formats that you
can use for entering the values for WEP key. It represents English letters as numbers from 0 to 127.
Authentication Type:
An indication of an authentication algorithm which can be supported by the
Access Point and wireless stations:
1. Open System: Open System authentication is the simplest of the available authentication algorithms.
Essentially it is a null authentication algorithm. Any station that requests authentication with this
algorithm may become authenticated if 802.11 Authentication Type at the recipient station is set to
Open System authentication.
2. Shared Key: Shared Key authentication supports authentication of stations as either a member of
those who knows a shared secret key.
Backbone:
The core infrastructure of a network, which transports information from one central location
to another where the information is unloaded into a local system.
Bandwidth:
The transmission capacity of a device, which is calculated by how much data the device
can transmit in a fixed amount of time expressed in bits per second (bps).
Beacon:
A beacon is a packet broadcast by the Access Point to keep the network synchronized. What
is Included in a beacon is the information such as wireless LAN service area, the IP address, the
Broadcast destination addresses, time stamp, Delivery Traffic Indicator Maps, and the Traffic
Indicator Message (TIM).
Bit:
A binary digit, which is either -0 or -1 for value, is the smallest unit for data.
Browser:
An application program that enables one to view the content and
interact on the World Wide Web or Intranet.
BSS:
BSS stands for
“
Basic Service Set
”
. It is an Access Point and all the wireless stations associating
with it.
Channel:
The bandwidth where wireless Radio operates is divided into several segments, which we
call them
“
Channels
”
. Access Points and associated wireless stations reside in one of the channels.
CSMA/CA:
In local area network, this is the CSMA technique that combines slotted time -division
multiplexing with carrier sense multiple access/collision detection (CSMA/CD) to avoid the occurrence
of collisions a second time. This works best if the time allocated is short compared to packet length and
if the number of situations is small.
CSMA/CD:
Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection, which is a LAN media access method
used in Ethernet. When a device wants to gain access to the network, it will see if the network is quiet
(senses the carrier). If it is not, it waits for a random amount of time before retrying. If the network is
