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130 GLOSSARY
Auto-negotiation Some devices in the range support auto-negotiation. Auto-negotiation is
where two devices sharing a link, automatically configure to use the best
common speed. The order of preference (best first) is: 100BASE-TX full
duplex, 100BASE-TX half duplex, 10BASE-T full duplex, and 10BASE-T
half duplex. Auto-negotiation is defined in the IEEE 802.3 standard for
Ethernet and is an operation that takes place in a few milliseconds.
Bandwidth The information capacity, measured in bits per second, that a channel can
transmit. The bandwidth of Ethernet is 10 Mbps, the bandwidth of Fast
Ethernet is 100 Mbps. The bandwidth for 802.11b wireless is 11Mbps.
Category 3 Cables One of five grades of Twisted Pair (TP) cabling defined by the EIA/TIA-586
standard. Category 3 is voice grade cable and can only be used in
Ethernet networks (10BASE-T) to transmit data at speeds of up to 10
Mbps.
Category 5 Cables One of five grades of Twisted Pair (TP) cabling defined by the EIA/TIA-586
standard. Category 5 can be used in Ethernet (10BASE-T) and Fast
Ethernet networks (100BASE-TX) and can transmit data up to speeds of
100 Mbps. Category 5 cabling is better to use for network cabling than
Category 3, because it supports both Ethernet (10 Mbps) and Fast
Ethernet (100 Mbps) speeds.
Channel Similar to any radio device, the Wireless Cable/DSL router allows you to
choose different radio channels in the wireless spectrum. A channel is a
particular frequency within the 2.4GHz spectrum within which the Router
operates.
Client The term used to describe the desktop PC that is connected to your
network.
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. This protocol automatically assigns
an IP address for every computer on your network. Windows 95,
Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 contain software that assigns IP
addresses to workstations on a network. These assignments are made by
the DHCP server software that runs on Windows NT Server, and Windows
95 and Windows 98 will call the server to obtain the address. Windows
98 will allocate itself an address if no DHCP server can be found.