Wi-Fi standard

IEEE 802.11

• Data Rate Up to 2Mbps in the 2.4GHz band
• Modulation Scheme FHSS or DSSS
• Security WEP & WPA

IEEE 802.11a (Wi-Fi)

• Data Rate Up to 54Mbps in the 5GHz band
• Modulation Scheme FHSS
• Security WEP & WPA

IEEE 802.11b (Wi-Fi)

• Data Rate Up to 11Mbps in the 2.4GHz band
• Modulation Scheme DSSS with CCK
• Security WEP & WPA

IEEE 802.11g (Wi-Fi)

• Data Rate Up to 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz band
• Modulation Scheme OFDM above 20Mbps, DSSS with CCK below 20Mbps
• Security WEP & WPA

IP Address

Private IP Address
In Internet terminology, a private network is a network that uses RFC 1918 IP address space. Computers may be allocated addresses from this address space when it is necessary for them to communicate with other computing devices on an internal network (non-Internet).

Class A 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
Class B 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
Class C 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

Public IP Address
Public IP Addresses (also known as Static IP Addresses) are IP addresses that are visible to the public. Because they are public, they allow other people to know about and access your computer, like a Web server. In some cases, you do not want people to access your computer or you want to restrict certain individuals from accessing your computer or server. If that is the case, you will want to look into security measures to protect your computer. pam® offers several security solutions to help take the time and worry of maintain a secure computer, server and/or network.

Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Cable

Twisted pair cabling comes in two varieties: shielded and unshielded. Unshielded twisted pair (UTP) is the most popular and is generally the best option for school networks

The quality of UTP may vary from telephone-grade wire to extremely high-speed cable. The cable has four pairs of wires inside the jacket. Each pair is twisted with a different number of twists per inch to help eliminate interference from adjacent pairs and other electrical devices. The EIA/TIA (Electronic Industry Association/Telecommunication Industry Association) has established standards of UTP and rated five categories of wire

Categories of Unshielded Twisted Pair

• Category 1 Voice Only (Telephone Wire)


• Category 2 Data to 4 Mbps (LocalTalk)


• Category 3 Data to 10 Mbps (Ethernet)


• Category 4 Data to 20 Mbps (16 Mbps Token Ring)


• Category 5 Data to 100 Mbps (Fast Ethernet)

One difference between the different categories of UTP is the tightness of the twisting of the copper pairs. The tighter the twisting, the higher the supported transmission rate and the greater the cost per foot. Buy the best cable you can afford; most schools purchase Category 3 or Category 5. Category 5 cable is highly recommended.
If you are designing a 10 Mbps Ethernet network and are considering the cost savings of buying Category 3 wire instead of Category 5, remember that the Category 5 cable will provide more "room to grow" as transmission technologies increase. Both category 3 and category 5 UTP have a maximum segment length of 100 meters. In Florida, Category 5 cable is required for retrofit grants. 10BaseT refers to the specifications for unshielded twisted pair cable (category 3, 4, or 5) carrying Ethernet signals.

Computer Network

Computer networking is the engineering discipline concerned with communication between computer systems or devices. Such communicating computer systems constitute a computer network and these networks generally involve at least two devices capable of being networked with at least one usually being a computer. The devices can be separated by a few meters (e.g. via Bluetooth) or nearly unlimited distances (e.g. via the Internet). Computer networking is sometimes considered a sub-discipline of telecommunications, and sometimes of computer science, information technology and computer engineering. Computer networks rely heavily upon the theoretical and practical application of these scientific and engineering disciplines.