User's Manual

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6. GLOSSARY
The following glossary is for your reference, and is not directly related to the installation
of your Access Point.
- Wireless Access Point (AP) – Any entity that has station functionality provides
access to the distribution services via the wireless medium (WM) for associated stations.
- Ad-Hoc – A network is composed solely of stations within mutual communication
range of each other via the wireless medium (WM). An ad hoc network is typically
created in a spontaneous manner. The principal distinguishing characteristic of an ad hoc
network is its limited temporal and spatial extent. These limitations allow the act of
creating and dissolving the ad hoc network to be sufficiently straightforward and
convenient so as to be achievable by non-technical users of the network facilities; i.e., no
specialized technical skills are required and little or no investment of time or additional
resources is required beyond the stations that are to participate in the ad hoc network. Ad
hoc is often used as a slang term to refer to an independent basic service set (IBSS).
- BSS (Basic Service Set) – An AP is associated with several wireless stations.
- ESS (Extended Service Set) – More than one BSS can be configured as an Extended
Service Set. An ESS is basically a roaming domain.
- Ethernet – A popular local area network, originally developed by Xerox Corp.,
accepts transmissions from computers and terminals. Ethernet operates on 10 Mbps
baseband transmission over shielded coaxial cable or over shielded twisted pair telephone
wire.
- Fragmentation Threshold Value – Indicates how much of the network resources is
devoted to recovering packet errors. The value should remain at its default setting of 2,436.
If you experience high packet error rates, you can decrease this value but it will likely
decrease overall network performance. Only minor modifications of this value are
recommended.
- Infrastructure – The infrastructure includes the distribution system medium (DSM),
AP, and portal entities. It is also the logical location of distribution and integration service
functions of an extended service set (ESS). An infrastructure contains one or more APs
and zero or more portals in addition to the distribution system (DS).
- IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
- LAN – Local Area Network
- Open System – Is when the sender and the recipient do not share a secret key.
Each party generates its own key-pair and asks the receiver to accept the (usually
randomly) generated key. Once accepted, this key is used for a short time only;
then a new key is generated and agreed upon.
- Roaming – A function allows one to travel with a mobile end system (wireless LAN
mobile station, for example) through the territory of a domain (an ESS, for example)
while continuously connecting to the infrastructure.
- RSS – Receive Signal Strength