CableSense

Glossary

W

WAN

Wide Area Network. A computer network that consists of two or more LANs.

WEP

Wired Equivalent Privacy. An encryption protocol for protecting data transmitted over 802.11 wireless networks. The technology has now been proven vulnerable to hackers.

Wi-Fi

Wireless Fidelity. A generic term for 802.11 wireless network technology, although it is most commonly associated with 802.11b.

Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi alliance, an association of companies that certify 802.11-compliant products. Their goal is to inform consumers that "Wi-Fi Certified" products using the same frequency band are interoperable.

WLAN

Wireless Local Area Network. A generic term for 802.11 wireless network technology. Also known as LAWN and Wi-Fi.

WPA

WiFi Protected Access. A security standard for 802.11 wireless networks. It is designed as a software upgrade to replace the weak WEP security protocol. It includes dynamic encrpytion based on the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) and authenication capability based on the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP).

WPA is a subset of the upcoming 802.11i standard.