ZyXEL Communications Prestige 650HW - Manual (Page 55)

Prestige 650HW ADSL Router User’s Guide
Internet Access 3-11
FIELD DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE
When you have completed this menu, press [ ENTER ] at the prompt “Press ENTER to Confirm…” to save
your configuration, or press [ ESC ] at any time to cancel.
3.9 Wireless LAN
Your Prestige comes with a PCMCIA wireless card slot for 802.11b wireless LAN connectivity. With the
wireless LAN feature you can configure your Prestige that allows wireless clients to communicate with any
computer on your wired Ethernet network or to connect to the Internet via ADSL.
3.9.1 Wireless LAN Parameters
Channel
You can choose the radio channels depending on your geographical area.
ESS ID
Wireless LANs can be as simple as two computers with wireless network interface cards (NICs)
communicating in a peer-to-peer network or as complex as a number of computers with wireless NICs
communicating through access points (APs), which bridge network traffic to the wired LAN. You can setup
the Prestige as an AP in a peer-to-peer network.
Extended Service Set (ESS) is defined as one or more APs that connect to a specific wired Ethernet LAN
and their associated wireless clients. The ESS ID is a unique ID given to the access point and the wireless
clients that participate in the same wireless network. You can think the EES ID as being similar to a
workgroup name in a Microsoft network.
RTS Threshold
The RTS Threshold prevents the hidden node problem. Hidden node problem occurs when two stations are
within the range of the same access point, but are not within the range of each other. The following figure
illustrates the hidden node problem. Both stations (STA) are within the range of the AP, however, they
cannot hear each other. Therefore, they are considered as hidden nodes from each other. When a station
starts data transmission with the access point, it might not know that the other station is already using the
wireless medium. When these two stations send data at the same time, they might collide when arriving
simultaneously at the AP. The collision will most certainly results in a loss of messages for both stations.