Leds; Chapter 2: Planning Your Wireless Network; Network Topology; Ad-Hoc Versus Infrastructure Mode - Network Everywhere NWP11B User Manual

LEDs

Power Green. The Power LED lights up when the Adapter is pow-
ered on.
Act Green. The Link LED blinks when the Adapter is receiving
and transmitting network data.
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Network Everywhere
Figure 3-1
Wireless Notebook Adapter
™ Series
Chapter 2: Planning Your
Wireless Network

Network Topology

A wireless local area network (WLAN) is exactly like a regular local area net-
work (LAN), except that each computer in the WLAN uses a wireless device to
connect to the network. Computers in a WLAN share the same frequency
channel and SSID, which is an identification name for wireless devices.

Ad-Hoc versus Infrastructure Mode

Unlike wired networks, wireless networks have two different modes in which
they may be set up: infrastructure and ad-hoc. An infrastructure configura-
tion is a WLAN and wired LAN communicating to each other through an
access point. An ad-hoc configuration is wireless-equipped computers com-
municating directly with each other. Choosing between these two modes
depends on whether or not the wireless network needs to share data or periph-
erals with a wired network or not.
If the computers on the
wireless network need to
be accessed by a wired
network or need to share a
peripheral, such as a print-
er, with the wired network
computers, the wireless
network should be set up
in infrastructure mode.
(See Figure 2-1.) The
basis of infrastructure
mode centers around an
access point, which serves
as the main point of com-
munications in a wireless network. Access points transmit data to PCs
equipped with wireless network cards and adapters, which can roam within a
certain radial range of the access point. Multiple access points can be arranged
to work in succession to extend the roaming range, and can be set up to com-
municate with your Ethernet (wired) hardware as well.
Figure 2-1
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