User's Manual

telecommunications technology aimed at providing wireless data
over long distances in a variety of ways, from point-to-point links to
full mobile cellular type access. It is based on the IEEE 802.16
standard. The name WiMAX was created by the WiMAX Forum, which
was formed in June 2001 to promote conformance and
interoperability of the standard. The forum describes WiMAX as "a
standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile
wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL."
Wireless router
A stand-alone wireless hub that allows any computer that has a
wireless network adapter to communicate with another computer
within the same network and to connect to the Internet.
WLAN (Wireless
Local-Area Network)
A type of local-area network that uses high-frequency radio waves
rather than wires to communicate between nodes.
WPA* (Wi-Fi
Protected Access)
This is a security enhancement that strongly increases the level of
data protection and access control to a wireless network. WPA is an
interim standard that will be replaced with the IEEE's 802.11i
standard upon its completion. WPA consists of RC4 and TKIP and
provides support for BSS (Infrastructure) mode only. WPA and WPA2
are compatible.
WPA2* (Wi-Fi
Protected Access 2)
This is the second generation of WPA that complies with the IEEE TGi
specification. WPA2 consists of AES encryption, pre-authentication
and PMKID caching. It provides support for BSS (Infrastructure)
mode and IBSS (ad hoc) mode. WPA and WPA2 are compatible.
WPA-Enterprise
Wi-Fi Protected Access-Enterprise applies to corporate users. A new
standards-based, interoperable security technology for wireless LAN
(subset of IEEE 802.11i draft standard) that encrypts data sent over
radio waves. WPA is a Wi-Fi standard that was designed to improve
upon the security features of WEP as follows:
Improved data encryption through the temporal key integrity
protocol (TKIP). TKIP uses a hashing algorithm to scramble
the encryption keys and adds an integrity-checking feature to
ensure that the keys have not been tampered with.
User authentication, which is generally missing in WEP,
through the extensible authentication protocol (EAP). WEP
regulates access to a wireless network based on a computer's
hardware-specific MAC address, which is relatively simple to
be sniffed out and stolen. EAP is built on a more secure
public-key encryption system to ensure that only authorized
network users can access the network.
WPA is an interim standard that will be replaced with the IEEE's
802.11i standard upon its completion.
WPA-Personal
Wi-Fi Protected Access-Personal provides a level of security in the
small network or home environment.
WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi
Protected-Access Pre-
Shared Key)
WPA-PSK mode does not use an authentication server. It can be
used with the data encryption types WEP or TKIP. WPA-PSK requires
configuration of a pre-shared key (PSK). You must enter a pass
phrase or 64 hex characters for a pre-shared key of length 256-bits.