Wire World Of America 1800 - Manual (Page 135)

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Glossary
A
Access Point. A device that transports data between a wireless network and a wired network. With the help
of the system, a wireless base station is an example of an access point that acts between a wireless node
and with other wired PCs and peripherals.
ADSL. See Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line.
American National Standards Institute (ANSI). A non-governmental organization delegated with the
responsibility of developing and publishing standards for transmission codes, protocols, and high-level
languages for use in the United States.
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). A coding method that assigns specific
letters, numbers, punctuation, and control codes to a combination of 0s and 1s in a byte. ASCII is the code
by which most all personal computers encodes and translates data. ASCII was developed by the American
National Standards Institute (see above).
Analog. A continuously varying signal or wave. Telephone transmission and/or switching that is not
digital.
ANSI. See American National Standards Institute.
Applet. Small computer programs that can be downloaded quickly and used by computers with a Java-
capable browser.
ASCII. See American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). A group of DSL technologies that are asymmetric,
thereby reserving more downstream bandwidth (coming to the user from the Internet) than upstream
bandwidth (going from the user to the Internet). This type of DSL is advantageous for residential users that
do not need the same bandwidth speed in both directions. Also see DSL
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). A method of data transportation whereby fixed-length cells are
sent over a switched network. Because of its uniform handling of services, one network can meet the needs
of many broadband users, for the receipt of voice, video, and data.
ATM. See Asynchronous Transfer Mode.
B
Backbone. The part of a communications network that handles the major traffic using the highest-speed –
and often longest – paths in the network.