TP-Link TL-WN322G - Manual (Page 8)

TL-WN322G 54M Wireless USB Adapter User Guide
1.4 Network Configuration
To better understand how the wireless LAN products work together to create a wireless
network, it might be helpful to depict a few of the possible wireless LAN PC card network
configurations. The wireless LAN products can be configured as:
Ad-hoc (peer-to-peer) Mode
This is the simplest network configuration with several computers equipped with the PC
Cards that form a wireless network whenever they are within range of one another. In
ad-hoc mode, each client is peer-to- peer, would only have access to the resources of the
other client and does not require an access point. This is the easiest and least expensive
way for the SOHO to set up a wireless network.
The image below depicts a network in ad-hoc mode.
Figure 1-1 Ad-hoc mode.
Infrastructure Mode
The infrastructure mode requires the use of an access point (AP). In this mode, all wireless
communication between two computers has to be via the AP. It doesn’t matter if the AP is
stand-alone or wired to an Ethernet network. If used in stand-alone, the AP can extend the
range of independent wireless LANs by acting as a repeater, which effectively doubles the
distance between wireless stations.
The image below depicts a network in infrastructure mode.
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