29. Wi-Fi Fundamentals: Definitions and Components

Selected Issues:

Wireless Station (STA) – an addressable destination, but not a fixed location.

A portable STA is one that is moved from location to location, but that is used only while at a fixed location. Mobile STAs actually access the LAN while in motion.

Basic Service Set (BSS) – basic building block of an IEEE 802.11 LAN

BSS is a set of all stations that can communicate with each other at physical layer.

An access point (AP) – any entity that has STA functionality and a distribution system access function (DSAF), which enables access to the distribution system (DS), such as ethernet.

Distribution System (DS) – an element that interconnects BSSs