User's Manual

62 MDS Mercury 16E Technical Manual MDS 05-6302A01, Rev. A
MAC—Media Access Control.
MD5—A highly secure data encoding scheme. MD5 is a one-way hash
algorithm that takes any length of data and produces a 128 bit “finger-
print.” This fingerprint is “non-reversible,” it is computationally infea-
sible to determine the file based on the fingerprint. For more details
review RFC 1321 using an Internet search.
MCU—Microcontroller Unit.
MIB—Management Information Base.
MIMO—Multiple In / Multiple Out.
Mobile Station—Refers to a station that moves about while main-
taining active connections with the network. Mobility generally implies
physical motion. The movement of the station is not limited to a specific
network and IP subnet. In order for a station to be mobile it must estab-
lish and tear down connections with various access points as it moves
through the access points' territory.
MTBF—Mean-Time Between Failures.
Multiple Address System (MAS)—See Point-Multipoint System.
Network-Wide Diagnostics—An advanced method of controlling and
interrogating GE MDS radios in a radio network.
NTP—Network Time Protocol.
OFDM—Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex.
Packet—The basic unit of data carried on a link layer. On an IP net-
work, this refers to an entire IP datagram or a fragment thereof.
Scanning—Scanning is a process used by Subscribers to detect Base
Stations on the network to which it may connect.
PING—P
acket INternet Groper. Diagnostic message generally used to
test reachability of a network device, either over a wired or wireless net-
work.
Point-Multipoint System—A radio communications network or
system designed with a central control station that exchanges data with
a number of remote locations equipped with terminal equipment.
Poll—A request for data issued from the host computer (or master PLC)
to a remote radio.
Portability—A station is considered connected when it has successfully
authenticated and associated with an access point. A station is consid-