HP Radio Frequency Planner Software Series - Manual (Page 117)

Appendix D: Glossary of Terms
HP RF Planner User Guide
115
Term Definition Description
‘What-If’ scenarios. You can also generate various RF views.
RF Radio Frequency This is a name given to invisible electromagnetic waves.
RSSI
Received Signal
Strength Indicator
This is an indicator of the value of the signal strength at a wireless
receiver.
RF Manager
A proprietary product of HP that functions as a comprehensive Wi-Fi
Intrusion Prevention System and Performance Management
Solution.
RF Manager Sensors
Sensors are devices that work with the RF Manager Server to
provide 802.11 Intrusion Detection and Prevention.
Spillage
Propagation of signal
outside a stipulated
area
In Planner, spillage refers to the propagation of RF signal outside the
authorized area of deployment. Such spillage exposes the
authorized area to the risk of attacks from hackers using Wi-Fi.
.spm file Planner File
This is the proprietary Planner file format, which holds information
about RF signal values, placement of devices, and device settings.
.prj file Planner Project File
This is the propriety Planner project file, which contains a bundle of
.spm, image, and AutoCAD files.
WAN Wide Area Network
It is a public and private network serving a large geographical area.
For example, the Internet.
Wi-Fi Wireless Fidelity
Wi-Fi is a commonly used name to refer to 802.11. It is a trade term
promulgated by the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance
(WECA).
"Wi-Fi" is used in place of 802.11b in the same way that "Ethernet"
is used in place of IEEE 802.3. Products certified as Wi-Fi by WECA
are interoperable with each other even if they are from different
manufacturers. A user with a Wi-Fi product can use any brand of AP
with any other brand of Client hardware that is built to the Wi-Fi
standard.
802.11a Wireless Protocol
When 802.11b was developed, IEEE created a second extension to
the original 802.11 standard called 802.11a. 802.11a works in the
~5 GHz frequency band and provides wireless connectivity speeds of
up to 54 Mbps.
802.11b Wireless Protocol
IEEE expanded on the original 802.11 standard in July 1999,
creating the 802.11b specification. 802.11b supports bandwidth up
to 11 Mbps. 802.11b uses the same radio signaling frequency – 2.4
GHz, as the original 802.11 standard. Being an unregulated
frequency, 802.11b gear can incur interference from microwave
ovens, cordless phones, and other appliances using the same 2.4
GHz range. However, you can easily avoid interference by installing
802.11b gear at a reasonable distance from other appliances.
Vendors often prefer using unregulated frequencies to lower their
production costs.
802.11g Wireless Protocol
In 2002 and 2003, WLAN products supporting a new standard called
802.11g began to appear on the scene. 802.11g attempts to
combine the best of both 802.11a and 802.11b. 802.11g supports
bandwidth up to 54 Mbps, and it uses the 2.4 GHz frequency for
greater range. 802.11g is backwards compatible with 802.11b,
which means that 802.11g APs will work with 802.11b Wireless
Network Adapters and vice versa.
802.11n Wireless Protocol
This is an emerging standard for wireless local area networks that
promises higher data rates and longer range as compared to its
predecessors 802.11a, b, and g. 802.11n brings many new features
at the medium access control and physical layers (for example,
multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO), wider 40 MHz channels,
frame aggregation).
MIMO configuration
Multiple-Input-Multiple-
Output configuration
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) stands for multiple radio
chains at the transmitter and receiver, often depicted as n x m,
where n is the number of transmitting radios and m is the number of
receiving radios. MIMO can be leveraged in many ways for
increasing the range of a WLAN using spatial diversity and for
increasing the data transmission rate using spatial multiplexing.
Spatial diversity is achieved by transmitting or receiving copies of
the same signal over multiple radios. Spatial multiplexing is
achieved by transmitting and receiving unique data streams over