802.11n Wireless USB Adapter WNL-U552 User’s Manual Version: 1.
Copyright Copyright © 2007 by PLANET Technology Corp. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language or computer language, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual or otherwise, without the prior written permission of PLANET.
Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Radiation Exposure Statement This equipment complies with FCC radiation exposure set forth for an uncontrolled environment. In order to avoid the possibility of exceeding the FCC radio frequency exposure limits, human proximity to the antenna shall not be less than 20 cm (8 inches) during normal operation.
CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Features ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Specifications ............................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Package Contents .......................................................................................................
Chapter 1 Introduction For higher wireless transfer performance, we are glad to introduce the PLANET 802.11n wireless USB adapter – WNL-U552. It is a USB 2.0 wireless adapter that can operate in either Ad-Hoc mode (Point to Point/Point to Multipoint without an Access Point) or Infrastructure mode (Point to Point / Point to Multipoint with an Access Point) 2.4GHz frequency band; it’s backward compatible with 802.11b and 802.
1.2 Specifications Interface USB 1.1 / 2.0, Type-A Standards Conformance Compliant with 802.11b / 802.11g / 802.11n (draft 2.0) IEEE 802.11b: 11/5.5/2/1M IEEE 802.11g: 54/48/36/24/18/12/9/6 IEEE 802.11n: 300/270/243/240/216/180/162/120/108Mbps in 40Mhz mode 145/130/117/104/ 78Mbps in 20Mhz mode Infrastructure Mode, Ad-Hoc Mode WEP 64/128bit, WPA, WPA2 802.11b: DSSS, CCK, QPSK, BPSK 802.11g: OFDM 802.11n: 64QAM, 16QAM, QPSK, BPSK 11b mode: 16~18dBm 11g mode: 14~16dBm 11n mode: 11~13dBm 2.412~2.
Chapter 2 Installation Procedure Utility Installation 1. Insert the bundled CD into the CD-ROM drive to launch the auto run program. Once completed, a menu screen will appear. 2. Click the “Configuration Utility” hyperlink in the WNL-U552 field to initiate the installation procedure. Note: If the menu screen does not appear, click “Start” at the taskbar. Then, select “Run” and type “E:\Utility\WNL-U552\setup.exe”, where the E is your CD-ROM drive. 3. Read the License Agreement carefully.
6. You can see the installation progress in this screen. 7. Please click “Finish” to finish the installation.
Driver Installation 1. Please insert WNL-U552 into a vacant USB port of your PC. 2. Windows will detect this device automatically. When the “Found New Hardware Wizard” dialog box appears, please click “Cancel”. 3. Choose the first one “Search for the best driver in these locations” and tick the box of “include this location in the search:” and then to click “Browse” to direct the hardware driver where is in “C:\Program Files\PLANET\ PLANET WNL-U552\Driver” Then click “Next” to continue. 4.
5. The screen will show the rate of progress for the installation of WNL-U552 as below. 6.
7. The WNL-U552 utility will appear on the screen. Please select the AP you would like to connect and press “Connect” button to link it. Please click” OK” to continue.
Chapter 3 Configuration Utility The Configuration Utility is a powerful application that helps you configure the WNL-U552 and monitor the link status and the statistics during the communication process. When the WNL-U552 is installed, the configuration utility will be displayed automatically. This card will auto connect to wireless device which has better signal strength and no wireless security setting. The Configuration Utility appears as an icon on the system tray of Windows while the card is running.
3.1 Site Survey When you open the Configuration Utility, the system will scan all the channels to find all the access points/stations within the accessible range of your card and automatically connect to the wireless device with the highest signal strength. From the “Site Survey”, all the networks nearby will be listed. You can change the connection to another network or add one of the networks to your own profile list.
3.2 Profile The “Profiles List” is for you to manage the networks you connect to frequently. You are able to Add/Delete/Edit/Activate a profile. Parameter Description Profiles List The profiles list display all the profiles and the relative settings of the profiles including Profile Name, SSID, Channel, etc. This sign indicates the activated profile is been connecting. This sign indicates the activated profile is not been connecting.
3.2.1 Add Profile - Configuration Parameter Description Profile Name Define a recognizable profile name for you to identify the different networks. SSID The SSID (up to 32 printable ASCII characters) is the unique name identified in a WLAN. The ID prevents the unintentional merging of two co-located WLANs. You may specify a SSID for the card and then only the device with the same SSID can interconnect to the card.
Network Type Infrastructure – This operation mode requires the presence of an 802.11 Access Point. All communication is done via the Access Point or Router. Ad-Hoc – Select this mode if you want to connect to another wireless station in the Wireless LAN network without through an Access Point or Router. TX Power If you want to lower the transmit power of the card for saving the power of the system, you can select the lower percentages from the list.
Channel 3.2.2 This setting is only available for Ad Hoc mode. Select the number of the radio channel used for the networking. The channel setting should be the same with the network you are connecting to. Add Profile - Authentication and Security Parameter Description Authentication Type This setting has to be consistent with the wireless networks that the card intends to connect. Open – No authentication is needed among the wireless network.
WPA – WPA provides a scheme of mutual authentication using either IEEE 802.1x/Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) authentication or pre-shared key (PSK) technology. It provides a high level of assurance to enterprises, small businesses and home users that data will remain protected and that only authorized users may access their networks. For enterprises that have already deployed IEEE 802.1x authentication, WPA offers the advantage of leveraging existing authentication databases and infrastructure.
Note: All devices in the network should use the same encryption method to ensure the communication. WPA Pre-Shared Key The WPA-PSK key can be from 8 to 64 characters and can be letters or numbers. This same key must be used on all of the wireless stations in the network. WEP Key (Key1 ~ Key4) The WEP keys are used to encrypt data transmitted in the wireless network. There are two types of key length: 64-bit and 128-bit. Select the default encryption key from Key 1 to Key 4 by selected the radio button.
An example for MD5 Authentication IEEE 802.1x Access Client RADIUS Client 3 RADIUS Server 1 Access Point 2 4 Windows 2000 IAS (Internet Authentication Service) (1) Client requests to login the network. (3) Send username, password to RADIUS server. (2) Login with username, password. (4) Approve or deny user login to the LAN. Parameter Description Authentication Type The EAP authentication protocols this card has supported are included as follows.
encrypted tunnel. TTLS supports any protocol within its tunnel, including CHAP, MS-CHAP, MS-CHAPv2, PAP and EAP-MD5. PEAP specifies that an EAP-compliant authentication protocol must be used; this card supports EAP-MSCHAP v2, EAP-TLS/Smart card and Generic Token Card. The client certificate is optional required for the authentication. TLS/Smart Card –TLS is the most secure of the EAP protocols but not easy to use. It requires that digital certificates be exchanged in the authentication phase.
3.2.2.2 802.1x Setting - CA Server Parameter Description Use Certificate Chain When the EAP authentication type such as TLS, TTLS or PEAP is selected and required a certification to tell the client what server credentials to accept from the authentication server in order to verify the server, you have to enable this function. Certificate Issuer Choose the server from the list to issue the certificate.
name found on the certificate. Domain name must end in specified name When selected, the server name field identifies a domain. The certificate must use a server name belonging to this domain or to one of its sub-domains (e.g. zeelans.com, where the server is blueberry.zeelans.com) but it may be any name used in the certificate name field. 3.3 Link Status From the “Link Status” option, you can view all the information of the network you are connecting to.
Link Speed (Mbps) Display the transmission and reception rate of the network. The maximum transmission rate is 54Mbps. Throughput (Kbits/sec) Display the speed of data transmitted and received. Link Quality This bar indicates the quality of the link. The higher the percentage, the better the quality. dBm If you want to know the signal strength in the unit of dBm, select this check box. Signal Strength This bar shows the signal strength level.
3.5 Advance This option enables you to configure more advanced settings, for example: wireless mode, protection mode and etc. Parameter Description Wireless Mode 802.11 B/G/N mix – If you have a mix of 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n wireless stations in your network, It is to maximize wireless compatibility with wireless access points and other wireless devices. it is recommended to setting the card to this mode. This mode is also the default setting. 802.11 B/G mix – If you have a mix of 802.
importing. If you are in different country, you have to adjust the channel setting to comply the regulation of the country. Wireless Protection If you have a mix of 802.11b and 802.11g wireless stations in the network, it is recommended to enable the protection mechanism. This mechanism can decrease the rate of data collision between 802.11b and 802.11g wireless stations.
Turn on CCKM During normal operation, LEAP-enabled client devices mutually authenticate with a new access point by performing a complete LEAP authentication, including communication with the main RADIUS server. When you configure your wireless LAN for fast re-association, however, LEAP-enabled client devices roam from one access point to another without involving the main server.
3.6 QoS This wireless network card provides QoS (Quality of Service) function, which can improve the performance of certain network applications, like audio / video streaming, network telephony (VoIP), and others. When you enable WMM (Wi-Fi MultiMedia) function of this network card, you can define the priority of different kinds of data, to give higher priority to applications which require instant responding. Therefore you can improve the performance of such network applications.
Direct Link Setup Enable Enable or disable direct link setup (DLS) function. This function will greatly improve the data transfer rate between WMM-enabled wireless devices. Please click ‘Apply’ button on the right of this check box after you check or uncheck this box, so corresponding settings in this window will be activated or deactivated respectively.
3.7 WPS Configuration Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) is the latest wireless network technology which makes wireless network setup become very simple. If you have WPS-enabled wireless access point, and you want to establish a secure connection to it, you don’t have to configure the wireless access point and setup data encryption.
3.7.1 WPS Setup - PBC (Push-Button Configuration) 1. Push the ‘WPS’ button on your wireless access point (the button used to activate WPS standby mode), or use other way to start WPS standby mode as the instruction given by your wireless access point’s user manual. 2. Before you start to establish the wireless connection by using WPS, you can click ‘Rescan’ button to search for WPS-enabled access points near you, to make sure the WPS function of your access point is activated.
All access points found will be displayed. Please make sure the access point you wish to connect is displayed. If not, please click ‘Rescan’ few more times. You can also click ‘Information’ button to see the detailed information about selected access point. 5. Click ‘PBC’ button now to start to establish wireless connection by WPS, and please be patient (This may require several seconds to one minute to complete).
Sometime WPS may fail, and you can click ‘PBC’ button few more times to try again. When an access point is connected, you can click ‘Disconnect’ to disconnect your wireless network card from a connected access point, or select another WPS-enabled wireless access point, then click ‘Connect’ to establish connection to selected access point, if there are more than one WPS-enabled access point found. You can also click ‘Rotate’ button, and next access point on the list will be selected to establish connection.
Click ‘PIN’ button now, and wait for few seconds to one minute.
You may have to click ‘PIN’ for few more times to try again. If you still can not connect to access point by this way, please make sure the PIN code you provided to access point is correct. Note: This function is not support in the OS of Windows VISTA.
3.8 About By choosing this option, you can click the hyperlink to connect the PLANET website. You can also obtain basic information about the WNL-U552 such as the Driver, Utility and EEPROM Version. The MAC Address of the card is displayed in the screen as well.
Chapter 4 Appendix 4.1 Troubleshooting This chapter provides solutions to problems usually encountered during the installation and operation of the adapter. Q. The PLANET WNL-U552 does not work properly. Ans.: 1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties. Select the device manager and click on the Network Adapter. You will find the Adapter if it is installed successfully. If you see the yellow exclamation mark, the resources are conflicting. You will see the status of the Adapter.
can result in multiple singular BSSs being established, rather than a single BSS with multiple clients associated to it. 6. Check that the Network Connection for the wireless client is configured properly. If Security is enabled, make sure that the correct encryption keys are entered on both the Adapter and the access point. Q. I can’t find any wireless access point / wireless device in ‘Site Survey’ function. Ans.: 1.
2. Enable ‘Wireless Protection’ in ‘Advanced’ tab. 3. Try a lower TX Rate in ‘Advanced’ tab. 4. Disable ‘Tx Burst’ in ‘Advanced’ tab. 5. Enable ‘WMM’ in ‘QoS’ tab if you need to use multimedia / telephony related applications. 6. Disable ‘WMM – Power Save Enable’ in ‘QoS’ tab. 7. There could be too much people using the same radio channel. Ask the owner of the access point to change the channel number. 4.2 Glossary 1. What is the IEEE 802.11g standard? 802.
5. What is Infrastructure? An integrated wireless and wireless and wired LAN is called an Infrastructure configuration. Infrastructure is applicable to enterprise scale for wireless access to central database, or wireless application for mobile workers. 6. What is BSS ID? A specific Ad hoc LAN is called a Basic Service Set (BSS). Computers in a BSS must be configured with the same BSS ID. 7.
receiver, DSSS appears as low power wideband noise and is rejected (ignored) by most narrowband receivers. 13. What is Spread Spectrum? Spread Spectrum technology is a wideband radio frequency technique developed by the military for use in reliable, secure, mission-critical communication systems. It is designed to trade off bandwidth efficiency for reliability, integrity, and security.