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- 802.11a
- IEEE Wireless Standard for up to 54Mb/s in the 5GHz bands
- 802.11b
- IEEE Wireless Standard for up to 11Mb/s in the 2.4GHz ISM band
- 802.11g
- IEEE Wireless Standard for up to 54Mb/s in the 2.4GHz ISM band
- 802.11n
- IEEE Wireless Standard for up to 600Mb/s in the 2.4 and 5GHz bands
- 802.11ac
- IEEE Wireless Standard for up to 6.9Gb/s in the 5GHz bands
- 802.11ad
- IEEE Wireless Standard for up to 7.75Gb/s in the 60GHz ISB band
- 802.11af
- IEEE Wireless Standard for TV White Spaces (54 - 790MHz)
a
- ad-hoc
- From Latin for this: a Wi-Fi network with no Access Points.
- AP
- Access Point: a Wi-Fi radio or group of radios in a single enclosure.
b
- band
- A range of radio frequencies with a single management policy (e.g. 2.5GHz or 5GHz)
- BLE
- Bluetooth Low Energy
- BSS
- Basic Service Set: a managed, or infrastructure, Wi-Fi network with Access Points
- BSSID
- Basic Service Set Identifier: a MAC address used to uniquely identify a particular Wi-Fi Radio
c
- chain
- a component of a MIMO radio system which drives a single antenna in an array
- channel
- Wi-Fi channels correspond to particular frequencies in the 2.5 and 5 GHz ISM bands
d
- dBm
- Decibel Milliwatts: used to give an absolute power value for signal and noise, over a wide range. Wi-Fi signals for e.g. typically range between: 0.01mW (-20dBM) and 0.000000001mW (-90 dBm)
- dB
- Decibel: Unit used for measuring in scientific and engineering systems, help to express a wide range of values.
- DNS
- Domain Name System: distributed database containing records used for name and service resolution
- domain
- A portion of the global DNS namespace, such as istumbler.net or apple.com
- DSSS
- Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum: used by Bluetooth radios and some legacy 802.11 radios.
e
- EMI
- Electromagnetic interference: what happens when your fancy toys don't play nicely together.
- ELF
- Extremely low frequency: 3 to 30 Hz
f
- FHSS
- Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum, similar to DSSS.
g
- GATT
- BLE General ATTribute, used to advertise a Bluetooth Low Energy Device.
- GHz
- Gigahertz, 1 GHz is 1,000,000,000 (one billion) cycles a second, common microwave frequency range.
- gbit
- gigabit: 1,000 (10^3) bits. Usually used to measure network bandwidth.
- gbit/s
- gigabit per second
- GB
- gigabyte: 1,000 (10^3) bytes. Usually used to measure storage (Disks, Flash & etc.) size.
- GiB
- gibibyte: 1024 (2^10) bytes. Usually used to measure memory (RAM & Cache) size.
h
- host
- A computer connected to the Internet which may offer a service
i
- IEEE
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, publishers of the 802.11 standards.
- IEEE Bands
-
Name Frequency Range HF band 3-30 MHz VHF band 30-300 MHz UHF band 300-1000 MHz L band 1-2 GHz S band 2-4 GHz C band 4-8 GHz X band 8-12 GHz Ku band 12-18 GHz K band 18-27 GHz Ka band 27-40 GHz V band 40-75 GHz W band 75-110 GHz G band 110-300 GHz - IBSS
- Independent Basic Service Set: an Ad-hoc network
- IP
- Internet Protocol: the layer three protocol which routes packets across the global internet
- ISM
- Industrial Scientific and Medical
- ITU
- International Telecommunication Union
- ITU Bands
-
Name # Frequency Range TLF Tremendously low frequency below 3 Hz ELF Extremely low frequency 3-30 Hz SLF Super low frequency 30-200 Hz ULF Ultra low frequency 3 300-3000 Hz VLF Very low frequency 4 3-30 kHz LF Low frequency 5 30-300 kHz MF Medium frequency 6 300-3000 kHz HF High frequency 7 3-30 MHz VHF Very high frequency 8 30-300 MHz UHF Ultra high frequency 9 300-3000 MHz SHF Super high frequency 10 3-30 GHz EHF Extremely high frequency 11 30-300 GHz
j
- jk
- just kidding
k
- kbit
- kilobit: 1,000 (10^3) bits. Usually used to measure network bandwidth.
- kbit/s
- kilobits per second
- kB
- kilobyte: 1,000 (10^3) bytes. Usually used to measure storage (Disks, Flash & etc.) size.
- KiB
- kibibyte: 1024 (2^10) bytes. Usually used to measure memory (RAM & Cache) size.
k
- link
- a network connection between two computers, often the layer 2 or physical connection
- level
- Signal Level interpreted relative to the noise floor of the channel
m
- MAC
- Media Access Controller: a unique hardware address assigned to a network interface
- mbit
- megabit: 1,000,000 (10^6) bits. Usually used to measure network bandwidth.
- mbit/s
- megabits per second
- MB
- megabyte: 1,000,000 (10^6) bytes. Usually used to measure storage (Disks, Flash & etc.) size.
- MiB
- mebibyte: 1024 (2^(10+2)) bytes. Usually used to measure memory (RAM & Cache) size.
- mDNS
- Multicast DNS: the use of DNS packets over well known multicast addresses for local service discovery
- MHz
- Megahertz, 1 MHz is 1,000,000 (one million) times second, used to measure frequency and the width of channels.
- MIMO
- Multiple In Multiple Out: radio systems combining multiple radio chains with multiple antennas for higher performance
- MSL
- Mean Sea Level: used in GPS coordinates to indicate elevation
n
- noise
- received energy by the radio which cannot be decoded into signal
- noise floor
- the lowest possible noise level for a given channel width and frequency
o
- OFDM
- Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, used in 802.11a and later Wi-Fi radios
p
- PAN
- Personal Area Network, wireless networks with a range generally less than 10 meters
- pair
- Bluetooth devices can be paired by exchanging keys to securely setup a link
- peer
- Another device or host on the network
- protocol
- a set of rules for the contents and order of messages between two computers, e.g. HTTP, TCP, IP, Wi-Fi, etc.
q
- QOS
- Quality of Service: a specific tag added to packets to request priority handling by the network infrastructure, often for deliver of voice and video traffic with minimum jitter and delay
r
- RSS
- Really Simple Syndication: the publishing technology behind weblogs, news readers and podcasting.
- RSSI
- Received Signal Strength Indication: a number, typically expressed in Decibel Milliwatts (dBm).
s
- signal
- The portion of the received energy in the radio which was successfully decoded, usually expressed in dBm
- server
- A computer program which waits for a client to connect over the network so that it can provide some data. e.g. a web server provides HTML data to a browser so that it can render a web page to the user
- SSID
- Service Set Identifier: a 1-32 byte string, typically presented as the network name
- SLF
- Super Low Frequency band: 30 to 300 Hz
- S/N
- Signal to Noise Ratio: the ratio, typically in Decibels, of the signal level to noise as received by the radio. Higher S/N ratios are better.
t
- TCP
- The Transmission Control Protocol: provides for reliability, ordering and flow control on top of lossy IP networks
- TLF
- Tremendously Low Frequency: Below 3 Hz
u
- UDP
- User Datagram Protocol: provides for simple, but unreliable and un-windowed communication on top of IP
- UHF
- Ultra High Frequency band: 300 to 3000 Mhz
- ULF
- Ultra Low Frequency band: 300 to 3000 Hz
- UWB
- Ultra Wide Band: Radio systems with channels greater than 1GHz in width
v
- VHF
- Very High Frequency band: 30 to 300 MHz
- VLF
- Very Low Frequency band: 3 to 30 kHz
w
- WEP
- Wired Equivalent Privacy: an old and very broken form of layer-2 encryption
- WFA
- Wi-Fi Alliance: Trade Association created to promote 802.11 standards and insure interoperability
- Wi-Fi
- Wi-Fi: Registered Trade Mark created by the Wi-Fi Alliance to promote the 802.11 standards
- WPA
- Wireless Protected Access: a new stronger, but still broken, form of layer-2 encryption
- WPA2
- Wired Equivalent Privacy 2: an even news stronger, not yet broken, form of layer-2 encryption
- WTF
- Whisky Tango Foxtrot?
x
- XML
- eXtensible Markup Language (the X makes it much much cooler than "EML" would have been)
y
- yotta
- a lotta
z
- zetta
- less than a yotta
- ZFS
- The greatest filesystem that never was
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