ZyXEL Communications Prestige 642 User Manual page 67

electromagnetic spectrum and thus the bandwidth of various communication systems.
Flash The nonvolatile storage that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed so that data can be
memory stored, booted, and rewritten as necessary.
Gateway A gateway is a computer system or other device that acts as a translator between two
systems that do not use the same communication protocols, data formatting structures,
languages, and/or architecture.
Host Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on
the network. It is quite common to have one host machine provide several services, such as
WWW and USENET.
IANA Internet Assigned Number Authority acts as the clearinghouse to assign and coordinate the
use of numerous Internet protocol parameters such as Internet addresses, domain names,
protocol numbers, and more. The IANA Web site is at http://www.isi.edu/iana.
ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol is a message control and error-reporting protocol between
a host server and a gateway to the Internet. ICMP uses Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams, but
the messages are processed by the TCP/IP software and are not directly apparent to the
application user.
internet
(Lower case i) Any time you connect 2 or more networks together, you have an internet.
Internet (Upper case I) The vast collection of inter-connected networks that all use the TCP/IP
protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's and early 70's. The Internet
now (July 1995) connects roughly 60,000 independent networks into a vast global internet
Intranet
A private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that
you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use.
IP Internet Protocol he IP (currently IP version 4, or IPv4), is the underlying protocol for routing
packets on the Internet and other TCP/IP-based networks.
IPCP (PPP)
IP Control Protocol allows changes to IP parameters such as the IP address.
IPX Internetwork Packet eXchange The native NetWare internetworking protocol is IPX
(Internetwork Packet Exchange). Like IP (Internet Protocol), IPX is an internetworking
protocol that provides datagram services.
ISP Internet Service Providers provide connections into the Internet for home users and
businesses. There are local, regional, national, and global ISPs. You can think of local ISPs
as the gatekeepers into the Internet.
LAN Local Area Network is a shared communication system to which many computers are
attached. A LAN, as its name implies, is limited to a local area. This has to do more with the
electrical characteristics of the medium than the fact that many early LANs were designed for
departments, although the latter accurately describes a LAN as well. LANs have different
topologies, the most common being the linear bus and the star configuration.
MAC On a local area network (LAN) or other network, the MAC (Media Access Control) address is
your computer's unique hardware number. (On an Ethernet LAN, it's the same as your
Ethernet address.) The MAC layer frames data for transmission over the network, then
Glossary
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