Glossary of Metropolitan Broadband Terms: U-Z

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This glossary of metropolitan broadband terms is drawn from a number of resources, all cited in the Orientation Resources sections of this website. Learning these terms is like learning a new language, so I urge you to jump in and start using them in conversation. Get familiar with them - try to use them in whole sentences, as in "I can't decide whether we need a WLAN or a WMAN for our town, but one things for sure, if we don't do something soon, we'll be stuck in a Hot Spot!"

Use this glossary as a reference: when you are stumped, be sure to refer back to the on-line reference sites as well. www.Wikipedia.org and www.whatis.com are two great resources. Most definitions can click through to their Wikipedia definition.

PLEASE EMAIL ME NEW TERMS THAT YOU LOOK FOR, BUT DON'T FIND IN THIS GLOSSARY.

VoD - VoD means Video on Demand, a service that provides streaming video or video download service to allow the customer to selectively choose the time and place of showing. VoD generally requires a bandwidth connection of at least 2mbps to be effective.

VoIP - VoIP means Voice over Internet Protocol, and is pronounced either V-O-I-P, or as the one-syllable word "voyp." VoIP is a category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using IP rather than by traditional circuit transmissions of the PSTN. One advantage of VoIP is that the telephone calls over the Internet do not incur a surcharge beyond what the user is paying for Internet access, much in the same way that the user does not pay for sending individual e-mails over the Internet.

VPN - VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. A VPN is virtual because it creates a private network by using a public network as the means of transporting the information. VPN's rely on encryption and other network security means to ensure that their private information is not intercepted while on the public network.

Wi-Fi - Wi Fi is a brand name created by the Wi Fi Alliance and attached to a set of global technology standards for wireless data networking equipment. Wi-Fi(R) is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, a nonprofit international association formed in 1999 to certify interoperability of wireless Local Area Network products based on IEEE 802.11 specification. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the Wi-Fi Alliance currently has over 200 member companies from around the world, and over 1500 products have received Wi-Fi(R) certification since certification began in March of 2000. The goal of the Wi-Fi Alliance's members is to enhance the user experience through product interoperability.

When the IEEE standards committee agreed to a set of standards, they allowed manufacturers to produce equipment that was interoperable. As the market grew under this new standard, the price for equipment fell dramatically. A $5000 wireless radio five years ago now can be had for under $50.

Most folks know of Wi Fi by the wireless routers used in home networks. The technology has also been widely applied in enterprises to expand wired Local Area Networks (LANs), and starting about three years ago, in {hot spots} where users gain free or for-fee high speed Internet access. In the past year or so, Wi Fi technology has been enhanced to create {Metropolitan Mesh} networks for citywide broadband.

A contraction of "Wireless Fidelity," Wi Fi LANs have a typical range of 100-500 feet. Anyone can set up a low-cost Wi-Fi network and cover a home, an office or a public space with high-speed wireless Internet access that is more than 100 times faster than a typical dial-up modem connection. Unlike other wireless technologies such as CDMA and GSM, Wi-Fi enjoys 100% global acceptance. It is becoming known as the "TCP/IP of wireless" -- a single wireless networking standard for all developers, equipment manufacturers, service providers and users, and comparisons are made with Ethernet in terms of projected impact on networking.

As with TCP/IP, any innovation in Wi-Fi benefits everyone else in the Wi-Fi community. Hundreds of manufacturers produce and distribute Wi-Fi radios and access points. The single Wi-Fi standard ensures these devices all interoperate with each other, so, for example, an access point made by Proxim or Tropos will communicate with a network card from Linksys. The term "Wi-Fi" covers many wireless standards established by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), an international standards organization:

802.11b is the original Wi-Fi standard, which operates at up to 11Mbits in the 2.4GHz band. 802.11b accounts for the bulk of all Wi-Fi equipment sold.
802.11g operates at up to 54Mbits in the same 2.4GHz band as 802.11b and is backward compatible with 802.11b access points. An 802.11g radio will connect to both 802.11g and 802.11b access points.
802.11a operates at up to 54Mbits in the 5GHz band and is not backward compatible with 802.11b. An 802.11a radio can only communicate with an 802.11a access point. However, many Wi-Fi PC cards now support both 802.11b/g and 802.11a.

The evolution of Wi-Fi includes the following 802.11 standards that are under development:

802.11e defines enhancements to provide quality of service (QoS). It will include support for prioritized access to different classes of data traffic and user types. This will lead to greatly improved performance for applications such as video, multimedia streaming and voice, in addition to providing prioritized access on a per-user or per-application basis.
802.11j defines extensions to allow for operation in the 4.9 GHz and 5GHz bands in Japan.
802.11k focuses on standardizing the radio measurements that will allow uniform measurement of radio information across different manufacturer platforms. This will lead to 802.11 networks that are easier to monitor and manage and that can make more efficient use of the available spectrum.
802.11n focuses on creating a standard to further increase the throughput of wireless networks. The goal is to achieve greater than 100 Mbps usable throughput over an 802.11 communications channel.
802.11r reduces handoff latency when client devices move between access points or mesh routers. Faster handoffs will be critical to meeting the real-time requirements of delay-sensitive applications such as voice, especially in mobile settings where client devices can be expected to roam frequently.
802.11s defines a mesh architecture overlaid on 802.11 that would allow for adaptive, self-configuring and fault-tolerant mesh networks that would expand the applicability and utility of 802.11 networks into hard-to-wire areas and larger campuses.

WikiA type of website that allows users to add and edit content easily and is especially suited for collaborative writing, the word "wiki" comes from the Hawaiian term for "quick", "fast", or "to hasten" (Hawaiian dictionary). Sometimes the reduplication wikiwiki (or Wikiwiki) is used instead of wiki (Hawaiian dictionary).The term Wiki also sometimes refers to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website (see wiki software). In essence, wiki is a simplification of the process of creating HTML web pages combined with a system that records each individual change that occurs over time, so that at any time, a page can be reverted to any of its previous states. A wiki system may also provide various tools that easily allow the user community to monitor the constantly changing state of the wiki and discuss the issues that emerge in trying to achieve a general consensus about wiki content. Wiki content can also be misleading as users may add incorrect information to the Wiki page. Be sure to check out WikiMetroNet, the on-line collaborative MetroNet Users Manual and companion website to this one! It's a one-two punch!

WiMAX - WiMAX(TM) is a trademark of the WiMAX Forum. Also known as IEEE 802.16, WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, which is a point to multi point, non-line-of-sight (NLOS) wireless broadband access technology. WiMAX can transfer data at rates around 70Mbps with a range of close to 30 miles all from just a single base station. It has the potential to enable even more millions to access the Internet wirelessly, cheaply and easily. These base stations will eventually cover an entire metropolitan area, making that area into a WMAN and allowing true wireless mobility within it, as opposed to hot-spot hopping required by Wi-Fi. WiMAX standard relies mainly on spectrum in the 2 to 11 GHz range. The WiMAX specification improves upon many of the limitations of the Wi-Fi standard by providing increased bandwidth and stronger encryption. Commercial development of WiMAX is expected to start by the summer of 2006.

Wireless Modern usage - Wireless is a very broad term used to describe any telecommunications wherein the signal moves over the air instead of over a wired network. The breadth of the term can cause confusion: originally, "wireless" was a synonym for radio; in more recent years, "wireless phones" referred specifically to mostly voice communication over cellular networks; and in the last few years, "wireless data" has come to refer also to newer data technologies such as Wi Fi, WiMAX, etc.

WISP - A WISP is a Wireless Internet Service Provider, a provider who provides fixed and/or mobile Internet access to users through wireless networks, typically setting up numerous Hot Spots or larger WMANs.

WLAN - A Wireless Local Area Network, synonymous with Hot Spots and Access Points.

WMAN - This acronym stands for Wireless Metropolitan Area Network, and is used to describe a large network that covers a broad metropolitan area such as an entire major city. Historically operated by major wireless carriers, WMANs provide voice and relatively low-bandwidth data service over a broad area, and require a dense network of communications towers, as well as spectrum licenses from the government. WANs can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to establish and maintain. A newer form of WMAN would use emerging WiMAX technology (IEEE 802.16) with a much lower cost structure.

Posted on February 03, 2006 at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)