User's Manual

4/1/05
OL-7426-02
OFDM
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing. A multi-carrier modulation technique used for 802.11a and
802.11g transmissions.
PC Card
A removable, credit-card-sized memory or I/O device that fits into a Type 2 PCMCIA standard slot, PC
Cards are used primarily in PCs, portable computers, PDAs and laptops. PC Card peripherals include
Wi-Fi cards, memory cards, modems, NICs, hard drives, etc.
PCI
A high-performance I/O computer bus used internally on most computers. Other bus types include ISA
and AGP. PCIs and other computer buses enable the addition of internal cards that provide services and
features not supported by the motherboard or other connectors.
PCMCIA
Expansion cards now referred to as “PC Cards” were originally called “PCMCIA Cards” because they met
the standards created by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association.
PDA
Smaller than laptop computers but with many of the same computing and communication capabilities,
PDAs range greatly in size, complexity and functionality. PDAs can provide wireless connectivity via
embedded Wi-Fi Card radios, slide-in PC Card radios, or Compact Flash Wi-Fi radios.
Peer-to-Peer Network
A wireless or wired computer network that has no server or central hub or router. All the networked PCs
are equally able to act as a network server or client, and each client computer can talk to all the other
wireless computers without having to go through an access point or hub. However, since there is no
central base station to monitor traffic or provide Internet access, the various signals can collide with
each other, reducing overall performance.
PEM
Privacy Enhanced Mail. PEM files are created from CSR files by a Certification Authority (CA) using
base64 encoding with additional header and footer lines.
PHY
The lowest layer within the OSI Network Model. It deals primarily with transmission of the raw bit
stream over the PHYsical transport medium. In the case of wireless LANs, the transport medium is free
space. The PHY defines parameters such as data rates, modulation method, signaling parameters,
transmitter/receiver synchronization, etc. Within an actual radio implementation, the PHY corresponds
to the radio front end and baseband signal processing sections.
Plug and Play
A computer system feature that automatic configures of add-ons and peripheral devices such as
wireless PC Cards, printers, scanners and multimedia devices.
POTS
Plain Old Telephone Service. Wired analog telephone service.
ppcboot
ppcboot
Cisco Wireless LAN Controller Bootloader.