Cabletron Systems RoamAbout Access Point Manual page 29

Chapter 2
Understanding Wireless Network
Characteristics
This chapter describes many of the wireless networking concepts and characteristics. You
should be familiar with this information before you design, implement, or manage a
RoamAbout wireless network. Not all characteristics apply to all of the network
configurations.
Wireless Network Name
A wireless network name is the name of the wireless infrastructure network. To add an
Access Point to an existing wireless network, configure the Access Point with the name of
the wireless network. To create a new wireless infrastructure network, configure the Access
Point with a unique wireless network name. The wireless network name is case sensitive.
For security, configure all the clients in the wireless network with the wireless network
name. The Access Point has a Secure Access feature that only allows clients with the
correct network name to access the network.
If security is not an issue, disable the Secure Access feature on the Access Point. Clients
can be configured without a network name (the network name field is blank) or use ANY
(all uppercase) as the wireless network name and still connect to the network.
The wireless network name is not used in an ad-hoc network or in a LAN-to-LAN
configuration.
Understanding Wireless Network Characteristics 2-1