User's Manual

VIA Technologies, Inc.
User's Manual
Revision 1.0 • June 6, 2006 - 19 - Appendix A: Terminology
Appendix A: Terminology
 ad hoc network A network composed solely of stations within mutual communication
range of each other via the wireless medium (WM).
 access point (AP) Any entity that has station functionality and provides access to the
distribution ser-vices, via the wireless medium (WM) for associated stations.
 Station (STA) Any device that contains an IEEE 802.11 conformant medium access
control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) interface to the wireless medium (WM).
 RTS (Request To Send) The frame type used to deign the RTS-CTS clearing
exchange. RTS frames are used when the frame that will be transmitted is larger than
the RTS threshold.
 CTS (Clear To Send) The frame type used to acknowledge receipt of a Request to
Send and the second component used in the RTS-CTS clearing exchange used to
prevent interference from hidden nodes.
 WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) The optional cryptographic confidentiality algorithm
specified by IEEE 802.11 used to provide data confidentiality that is subjectively
equivalent to the confidentiality of a wired local area network (LAN) medium that does
not employ cryptographic techniques to enhance privacy.
 authentication The service used to establish the identity of one station as a member
of the set of stations authorized to associate with another station.
 WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) A specification of standards-based, interoperable
security enhancements that strongly increase the level of data protection and access
control for existing and future wireless LAN systems.