802.11g Wireless USB 2.
Copyright Copyright ã 2004 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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION............................................................... 1 1.1 Features .............................................................................................. 1 1.2 Application ........................................................................................... 1 1.3 Specification ........................................................................................ 4 1.4 Package Contents ........................................................
Chapter 1 Introduction Complying with the IEEE 802.11g standard, WL-U356 provides simple, reliable, high-speed wireless connectivity for both desktop and laptop users. By combining two, state-of-the-art technologies—USB 2.0 and 802.11g—the gadget delivers data at speed up to 54Mbps, five times the speed of existing 802.11b devices, and spares the effort of opening up the case of your desktop computer. WL-U356 contains an internal patch antenna.
signals can provide wireless users with seamless network access. The Infrastructure mode is appropriate for enterprise-scale wireless access to a central database or provides various wireless applications for mobile users. Infrastructure mode also supports roaming capabilities for mobile users. More than one BSS can be configured as an Extended Service Set (ESS). The continuous wireless network connectivity allows users to roam freely within an ESS. All wireless clients using WL-U356 or other IEEE 802.
Soft AP This feature converts the wireless USB adapter into a wireless access point immediately, and you thus can create an instant wireless network, which spares the additional cost of purchasing a wireless access point. It makes WL-U356 a compact wireless access point with all basic functions contained in an ordinary access point. General Application WL-U356 offers a fast, reliable, cost-effective solution for wireless access to the various network scenarios: 1.
1.3 Specification Product 54Mbps Wireless USB Adapter Models WL-U356 Attach Interface USB 2.0 A-type connector LED Indicator Link/ACT Operating Frequency / Channel 2.412~2.462GHz (FCC, Canada) / 11 Channels 2.412~2.4835GHz (Japan, TELEC) / 14 Channels 2.412~2.472GHz (Euro ETSI) / 13 Channels RF Modulation OFDM with BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM RF Output Power 15dBm (Typical) 802.11b: 1, 2, 5.5, 11Mbps Data Rate 802.
1.6 Installation Considerations l Beware of the walls and ceilings. Each wall or ceiling can reduce your wireless cover range form 3-90 feet. Properly position your Access Points, Residential Gateways, and computers so that the number of walls or ceilings residing between Access Points and clients is minimized. l Building materials make a difference – A solid metal door or aluminum studs may have a negative effect on signal coverage range.
Chapter 2 Installation Procedure Before you proceed with the installation, it is necessary that you have enough information about the Wireless USB Adapter. Follow the procedure described below in this chapter to install the USB adapter under Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Server 2003. 2.1 Configuration Utility Installation The following installation operates under Window XP. The procedure also applies to Windows 98SE/ME/2000/Server 2003.
Note: If the above screen does not appear, click “Start” at the taskbar. Then, select “Run” and type “E:\Utility\WL-U356\setup.exe”, where E is your CD-ROM drive. C. You may click “Browse” to specify the destination folder you prefer for the installation of utility. Otherwise, you can keep the default setting and click “Next” to proceed. D. Once the utility is installed, select “Finish” to complete the installation procedure.
Note: If your operating system is Windows XP/Server 2003, the below window will pop up. Please select “Continue Anyway” to continue. Note: If your operating system is Windows 2000, the below window will pop up. Please choose “Yes” to go on.
2.2 Driver Installation Note: The following installation operates under Windows XP. The procedure also applies to Windows Server 2003. If your operating system is Windows 2000, please directly skip to step 3. If your operating system is Windows 98SE, Windows will automatically detect and install the device and ask you to insert the system installation CD to complete the entire procedure. Just click “Yes” to continue. A. Insert WL-U356 into a vacant USB port on the computer. B.
testing (WHQL). Click “Continue Anyway” to proceed since the card has been tested thoroughly to verify the compatibility. Note: If your operating system is Windows 2000, the below window will pop up. Please click “Yes” to continue. D. When the driver is installed, click “Finish” to complete the installation procedure.
11
Chapter 3 Configuration Utility The Configuration Utility is a powerful tool that helps you to configure WL-U356 easily and monitor the status of wireless communication. By double-clicking in the system tray, the dialog box will appear as follows: Note: It is highly recommended that you use PLANET utility tool to configure WL-U356 rather than Windows XP/ Server 2003 Wireless Zero Configuration unless you prefer the latter.
u Mode: Ø Station: Configure the USB adapter as a wireless station. Ø Access Point: Switch the USB adapter into a wireless access point. u Network Adapter: Displays the product information of the USB adapter. u Available Network: Displays all the SSID and Signal Strength of wireless access point and stations nearby. To rescan the available wireless networks, please click the “Refresh” button.
3.2 More Setting… You can enter this screen by clicking the “More Setting…” button. Here you can specify the wireless network to which WL-U351 intends to connect, enable/disable the WEP data encryption, save or load the settings into/from the profile, etc. u General Connection Setting: Displays the information including Channel, SSID, Tx Rate and Network Type. You can click the “Change” button to modify these values. Ø Channel: Shows the number of the radio channel used for the wireless networking.
Ad Hoc: This mode enables interconnecting of wireless adapters without the presence of an AP or Router. Ø Encryption: There are four items for selection: Disable, WEP, TKIP, and AES. You can configure the encryption method based on the settings in the “Encryption Setting” field. Ø Authentication mode: Auto: Auto switching of the authentication mode depends on the one adopted on wireless network that the USB adapter is connected to.
u Key Length: Select the 64, 128, or 256-bit WEP key to encrypt transmitted data. Larger key length will provide higher level of security, but the throughput will thus be affected. u Default Key ID: Select one of the four keys (1~4) as the specified encryption key. u Key Format: Ø Hexdecimal: Only “A-F”, “a-f”, and “0-9” are allowed to be entered. Ø ASCII: Digits, characters or signs are allowed to be entered. It’s more recognizable for users.
u Connection Information: Ø Protocol: There are two kinds of protocols for WPA user authentication- TLS and PEAP. TLS and PEAP require a Radius server and the Certificate Authority. The main difference between the 2 protocols is TLS requires both the radius server’s and the client’s certificates, while PEAP requires only the server’s certificate. Moreover, PEAP requires a set of user name of password, which are supposed to be preconfigured by the network administrator.
will change into “Apply” for you to confirm your new settings. 3.4 Advanced Setting Here you can perform country roaming, enable/disable power saving mode, and configure the fragmentation threshold and RTS/CTS threshold of WL-U356. u User Interface: Select the display language of the utility. Two languages are available: English and Traditional Chinese. u Country Roaming: This feature is developed based on IEEE 802.
Any packet size is larger than it will be fragmented. If you hit upon a high packet error rate, try to increase this value, but the performance will thus be affected. Keeping the default setting applies to most scenarios. u RTS/CTS Threshold: This feature focuses on solving the “Hidden Note” issue and avoiding subsequent collisions. If you encounter a high packet error rate and high latency, try to adjust this value to find the suitable one for your wireless network.
u Connect Station List: Display all the MAC addresses of the wireless stations associating with the AP. u Current Network Setting: Displays the information about the current wireless network, including Channel, SSID, WEP and Tx Power Level. u More Setting: Press this button for further settings including disable/enable WEP, MAC address Filter and Bridge Adapter, etc. Please refer to the Section 3.7 for detailed descriptions of each item.
works in 11b or 11b/g mixed mode, you can choose either “1, 2 Mbps” or “1, 2, 5.5, 11Mbps”. If the AP operates in pure 11g mode, you can choose one of the four modes. But for better performance, the last two modes (1, 2, 5.5, 11, 6, 12, 24Mbps and 6, 12, 24 Mbps) are recommended. Ø SSID: Service Set Identifier (up to 32 printable ASCII characters). The SSID must be identical for all the clients and AP of the same wireless network.
of 11b stations, use Long Preamble for better compatibility. Otherwise, Short Preamble will be a good choice in terms of the performance. u MAC Address Filter: It enables the AP to control the network access by MAC address filtering of the wireless clients. Ø Filter Type: There are three options- Disable, Accept and Reject. Disable makes you turn off the MAC address filter function. Accept means only wireless stations with the MAC addresses preconfigured on the below list will be granted access.
Chapter 4 Troubleshooting This section provides solutions to problems usually encountered during the installation and operation of the USB adapter. Read the description below to diffuse your doubts. What is the IEEE 802.11g standard? 802.11g is the latest IEEE standard for high-speed WLAN communications that provides up to 54Mbps data rate in the 2.4GHZ band. It has become the mainstream technology of current WLAN networks.
military for use in reliable, secure, mission-critical communication systems. It is designed to trade off bandwidth efficiency for reliability, integrity, and security. In other words, more bandwidth is consumed than in the case of narrowband transmission, but the trade off produces a signal that is, in effect, louder and thus easier to detect, provided that the receiver knows the parameters of the spread-spectrum signal being broadcast.