User Manual

Multipath: The signal variation caused when radio signals take multiple paths from

transmitter to receiver.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM): A modulation technique for

transmitting large amounts of digital data over radio waves. 802.11a uses OFDM, as will

802.11g.

Peer-to-Peer Mode: A wireless network structure that allows wireless clients to

communicate with each other without using an access point.

Personal Area Network (PAN): A personal area network, or PAN, is a networking

scheme that enables computing devices such as PCs, laptop computers, handheld

personal computers, printers and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to communicate with

each other over short distances either with or without wires.

Preamble: A preliminary signal transmitted over a WLAN to control signal detection and

clock synchronization.

Radio Frequency (RF) Terms (GHz, MHz, Hz): The international unit for measuring

frequency is Hertz (Hz), which is equivalent to the older unit of cycles per second. One

Mega-Hertz (MHz) is one million Hertz. One Giga-Hertz (GHz) is one billion Hertz. For

reference: the standard US electrical power frequency is 60 Hz, the AM broadcast radio

frequency band is 0.55 -1.6 MHz, the FM broadcast radio frequency band is 88-108 MHz,

and microwave ovens typically operate at 2.45 GHz.

Range: The distance over which a given system can communicate.

RC4: An encryption algorithm designed at RSA Laboratories; specifically, a stream

cipher of pseudo-random bytes that is used in WEP encryption.

Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS): An authentication and

accounting system that verifies users' credentials and grants access to requested