D-Link DWL-8600AP Administrator's Manual page 45

Software User Manual
12/10/09
Field Description
Protection The protection feature contains rules to guarantee that 802.11 transmissions do not cause
interference with legacy stations or applications. By default, these protection mechanisms are
enabled (Auto). With protection enabled, protection mechanisms will be invoked if legacy devices
are within range of the AP.
You can disable (Off) these protection mechanisms; however, when protection is off, legacy clients
or APs within range can be affected by 802.11n transmissions. Protection is also available when the
mode is 802.11b/g. When protection is enabled in this mode, it protects 802.11b clients and APs
from 802.11g transmissions.
Note: This setting does not affect the ability of the client to associate with the AP.
Beacon Interval Beacon
wireless network. The default behavior is to send a beacon frame once every 100 milliseconds (or
10 per second).
Enter a value from 20 to 2000 milliseconds.
DTIM Period Specify a DTIM period from 1 to 255 beacons.
The Delivery Traffic Information Map (DTIM) message is an element included in some
frames. It indicates which client stations, currently sleeping in low-power mode, have data buffered
on the AP awaiting pick-up.
The DTIM period you specify indicates how often the clients served by this AP should check for
buffered data still on the AP awaiting pickup.
The measurement is in beacons. For example, if you set this field to 1, clients will check for buffered
data on the AP at every beacon. If you set this field to 10, clients will check on every 10th beacon.
Fragmentation Specify a number between 256 and 2,346 to set the frame size threshold in bytes.
Threshold
The fragmentation threshold is a way of limiting the size of packets (frames) transmitted over the
network. If a packet exceeds the fragmentation threshold you set, the fragmentation function is
activated and the packet is sent as multiple 802.11 frames.
If the packet being transmitted is equal to or less than the threshold, fragmentation is not used.
Setting the threshold to the largest value (2,346 bytes) effectively disables fragmentation.
Fragmentation plays no role when Aggregation is enabled.
Fragmentation involves more overhead both because of the extra work of dividing up and
reassembling of frames it requires, and because it increases message traffic on the network.
However, fragmentation can help improve network performance and reliability if properly configured.
Sending smaller frames (by using lower fragmentation threshold) might help with some interference
problems; for example, with microwave ovens.
By default, fragmentation is off. We recommend not using fragmentation unless you suspect radio
interference. The additional headers applied to each fragment increase the overhead on the network
and can greatly reduce throughput.
RTS Threshold Specify a Request to Send
The RTS threshold indicates the number of octets in an MPDU, below which an RTS/CTS
handshake is not performed.
Changing the RTS threshold can help control traffic flow through the AP, especially one with a lot of
clients. If you specify a low threshold value, RTS packets will be sent more frequently. This will
consume more bandwidth and reduce the throughput of the packet. On the other hand, sending
more RTS packets can help the network recover from interference or collisions which might occur
on a busy network, or on a network experiencing electromagnetic interference.
Maximum Stations Specify the maximum number of stations allowed to access this AP at any one time.
You can enter a value between 0 and 200.
34CSFP6XXUAP-SWUM100-D13
Table 14: Radio Settings (Cont.)
frames are transmitted by an AP at regular intervals to announce the existence of the
(RTS) Threshold value between 0 and 2347.
Modifying Radio Settings
D-Link UAP
Beacon
Page 45