Wireless/Redundant Edge Services xl Module Management and Configuration Guide WS.02.xx and greater

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Introduction
Radio Ports
802.11 Overview
802.11 is the IEEE standard for wireless networks. It specifies Physical Layer
standards such as radio channel frequencies and the modulation techniques
used to encode data. At the Data Link Layer, the standard also specifies the
format for 802.11 frames.
At its most fundamental level, an 802.11 network can be defined as a set of
devices that communicates over the same medium. The area in which the
devices can detect each other’s signals is sometimes called a wireless cell.
More broadly, an 802.11 network, or WLAN, is a set of devices (typically,
stations and RPs) that share a network name.
For the purposes of understanding how to configure your Wireless Edge
Services xl Module, some important 802.11 concepts are:
■ Physical Layer standards
■ 802.11 frames
■ Basic service set (BSS)
■ Basic service set identifier (BSSID)
■ Extended service set (ESS)
■ Service set identifier (SSID)
Physical Layer Standards
The ProCurve Wireless Edge Services xl Module and ProCurve RPs support
these Physical Layer standards:
■ 802.11a
■ 802.11b
■ 802.11g
■ 802.11h
■ 802.11a
802.11a. 802.11a defines the Physical Layer for wireless networks in the 5.0
GHz range. Each wireless cell operates on a certain subfrequency, or channel,
within this range. None of these channels overlap—that is, interfere with each
other. The exact channels differ from region to region; setting the country code
on Wireless Edge Services xl Module allows the module OS to present you
with the correct options when you configure radio settings.