Reference Manual for the NETGEAR 54 Mbps Wireless USB Print Server with 4-Port Switch
Glossary
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E
Ethernet
A LAN specification developed jointly by Xerox, Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation. Ethernet
networks transmit packets at a rate of 10 Mbps.
G
Gateway
A local device, usually a router, that connects hosts on a local network to other networks.
I
Infrastructure Mode
An 802.11 networking framework in which devices communicate with each other by first going through an
Access Point (AP). In infrastructure mode, wireless devices can communicate with each other or can
communicate with a wired network. When one AP is connected to wired network and a set of wireless
stations it is referred to as a Basic Service Set (BSS). An Extended Service Set (ESS) is a set of two or more
BSSs that form a single subnetwork. Most corporate wireless LANs operate in infrastructure mode because
they require access to the wired LAN in order to use services such as file servers or printers.
Internet Protocol
The method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on the Internet. Each computer
(known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it among all other
computers on the Internet. When you send or receive data (for example, an e-mail note or a Web page), the
message gets divided into little chunks called packets. Each of these packets contains both the sender's
Internet address and the receiver's address. Any packet is sent first to a gateway computer that understands a
small part of the Internet. The gateway computer reads the destination address and forwards the packet to an
adjacent gateway that in turn reads the destination address and so forth across the Internet until one gateway
recognizes the packet as belonging to a computer within its immediate neighborhood or domain. That
gateway then forwards the packet directly to the computer whose address is specified.
Because a message is divided into a number of packets, each packet can, if necessary, be sent by a different
route across the Internet. Packets can arrive in a different order than they were sent. The Internet Protocol
just delivers them. It's up to another protocol, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to put them back in
the right order. IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that there is no continuing connection between
the end points that are communicating. Each packet that travels through the Internet is treated as an
independent unit of data without any relation to any other unit of data. (The reason the packets do get put in