Nice Guy Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi Terminology

I noticed that in my posts, sometime I’ll define something, and sometimes I don’t bother. Any technical writer has to ask himself, “Who is this for? What am I assuming the reader already knows? Am I insulting the reader by defining something that they obviously would already know? Am I disheartening them if I assume they already know something they don’t know?”

So I will try to avoid all of that be making this Terminology page that is by no means complete, but as I use terms I’ll try to put them in here. This will be a work in progress, so don’t judge it as incomplete, as that’s part of its charm…

Foundational Definitions

  • Wi-Fi – Trademarked term owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance (sometimes referred to as WFA). It’s not “Wifi” or “WiFi,” it’s Wi(dash)Fi. The term “wireless” is imprecise; it can mean CB radio, HAM radio, cellular communication, whatever. Therefore, I use Wi-Fi to indicate a device that is compatible with other 802.11 devices.
  • 802.11 – IEEE working group in charge of Wi-Fi (seems like an endless loop, since the WFA certifies 802.11 standards for interoperability). IEEE 802.11 makes the standards, and the WFA certifies them.

Wi-Fi Definitions

Note that these are not in alphabetical order… they are in the order of relevance (as determined by me, since I own the site and can do whatever I want).

  • AP (Access Point) – Wi-Fi device that advertises SSIDs. It may convert wireless data frames to Ethernet frames and drop them off on a DS, send them back to another wireless STA, or send them upstream to a root AP in a mesh network
  • STA (Station) – Wi-Fi device that connects to SSIDs. This is the first example of something that doesn’t need to be an acronym. Wi-Fi people like to make up acronyms and initialisms that don’t stand for anything (see also: PHY)
  • SSID (Service Set IDentifier) – Wi-Fi network that APs and STAs use to communicate.
  • BSSID (Base SSID) – The MAC address associated with an AP’s instance of an SSID
  • ESSID (Extended SSID) – The name associated with a BSSID; “SSID” is short version of ESSID
  • PHY (Physical) – Another example of an “initialism” that doesn’t need to be.
    • PHY – a name for a Wi-Fi generation; for example: HT, VHT, HE
    • PHY rate – The physical rate in which a wireless network is running. For example, original OFDM was 54 Mbps PHY, but didn’t typically get more than 22 Mbps actual throughput. Also known as “data rate.”
  • DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) – Radio transmission method that is primarily used to reduce overall signal interference.
  • OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) – Two things:
    • Radio transmission method that splits data into multiple sub-carriers, each on a different frequency, and transmits them in parallel.
    • PHY name for 802.11a
  • OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) – Radio transmission method used by HE and EHT
  • HR-DSSS (High Rate DSSS) – PHY name for 802.11b
  • OFDM-ERP (OFDM Extended Rate Physical) – PHY name for 802.11g
  • HT (High Throughput) – PHY name for 802.11n
  • VHT (Very High Throughput) – PHY name for 802.11ac (Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac aka Wi-Fi 5)
  • HE (High Efficiency) – PHY name for 802.11ax / (Wi-Fi 6)
  • EHT (Extremely High Throughput) – PHY name for 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7)
  • UHR (Ultra High Reliability) – PHY name for upcoming 802.11bn (Wi-Fi 8, probably)
  • DS (Distribution System) – Typically the Ethernet network onto which the AP sends data frames
  • WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) – Generic synonym for “Wi-Fi”
  • SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals) – Newer, more secure method for WPA3-Personal
  • WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access)
    • WPA2
    • WPA3
    • Personal
    • Enterprise
  • WEP
  • MCS (Modulation and Coding Scheme)

General Technical Networking Definitions

  • RADIUS (Remote Access Dial-In User Service)
  • DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
  • DNS (Domain Name System)
  • EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol)
    • PEAP (Protected EAP)
    • EAP-TLS (EAP Transport Layer Security)
  • TLS (Transport Layer Security)
  • LAN (Local Area Network)
  • WAN (Wide Area Network)
  • NAT (Network Address Translation)
    • CGNAT (Carrier Grade NAT)

Standards and Business Terms

  • BBF (Broadband Forum)
  • WBA (Wireless Broadband Alliance)
  • TR-xxx (Technical Report XXX) -Broadband Forum standards
  • ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector)

Security Terms

  • AES (Advanced Encryption System)
  • RC4
  • PBKDF2