Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by the American National Standards Institute and International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of the Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network as defined in the late 1980s, and designed to integrate telecommunication networks. It can handle both traditional high-throughput data traffic and real-time, low-latency content such as telephony (voice) and video. ATM provides functionality that uses features of circuit switching and packet switching networks by using asynchronous time-division multiplexing. ATM was seen in the 1990s as a competitor to Ethernet and networks carrying IP traffic as, unlike Ethernet, it was faster and designed with quality-of-service in mind, but it fell out of favor once Ethernet reached speeds of 1 gigabits per second.
IEEE 802 is a family of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards for local area networks (LANs), personal area networks (PANs), and metropolitan area networks (MANs). The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee (LMSC) maintains these standards. The IEEE 802 family of standards has had twenty-four members, numbered 802.1 through 802.24, with a working group of the LMSC devoted to each. However, not all of these working groups are currently active.
A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking allows homes, telecommunications networks and business installations to avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment locations. Admin telecommunications networks are generally implemented and administered using radio communication. This implementation takes place at the physical level (layer) of the OSI model network structure.
A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, message switching, or packet switching, to pass messages and signals.
Wireless community networks or wireless community projects or simply community networks, are non-centralized, self-managed and collaborative networks organized in a grassroots fashion by communities, non-governmental organizations and cooperatives in order to provide a viable alternative to municipal wireless networks for consumers.
Wi-Fi is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves. These are the most widely used computer networks, used globally in home and small office networks to link devices and to provide Internet access with wireless routers and wireless access points in public places such as coffee shops, hotels, libraries, and airports.
RedLibre is a non-profit project in which a combination of people, groups, entities, administrations or companies interested in the development and/or use of networks create a free, community data network that allows users to contribute content and share resources, among other uses.
The Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN) is a grassroots wireless community network established in 2002 in Athens, Greece. By August 2010, the network had grown to include 1,120 backbone nodes, with over 2,900 client computers actively linked to it. There is also an association-club that supports the network's objectives.
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options.
Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage and allow for transmission of data, which can include voice and video transmissions. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware, and mobile software. Communication issues include ad hoc networks and infrastructure networks as well as communication properties, protocols, data formats, and concrete technologies. Hardware includes mobile devices or device components. Mobile software deals with the characteristics and requirements of mobile applications.
In IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networking standards, a service set is a group of wireless network devices which share a service set identifier (SSID)—typically the natural language label that users see as a network name. A service set forms a logical network of nodes operating with shared link-layer networking parameters; they form one logical network segment.
Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.
Wireless security is the prevention of unauthorized access or damage to computers or data using wireless networks, which include Wi-Fi networks. The term may also refer to the protection of the wireless network itself from adversaries seeking to damage the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the network. The most common type is Wi-Fi security, which includes Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WEP is an old IEEE 802.11 standard from 1997. It is a notoriously weak security standard: the password it uses can often be cracked in a few minutes with a basic laptop computer and widely available software tools. WEP was superseded in 2003 by WPA, a quick alternative at the time to improve security over WEP. The current standard is WPA2; some hardware cannot support WPA2 without firmware upgrade or replacement. WPA2 uses an encryption device that encrypts the network with a 256-bit key; the longer key length improves security over WEP. Enterprises often enforce security using a certificate-based system to authenticate the connecting device, following the standard 802.11X.
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. Computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are made up of telecommunication network technologies based on physically wired, optical, and wireless radio-frequency methods that may be arranged in a variety of network topologies.
Village Telco is an initiative to build low-cost community telephone network hardware and software. It is based on a suite of open-source applications that enable entrepreneurs to set up and operate a telephone service in a specific area or supporting the needs of a specific community.
The Wireless Amateur Network of Amaliada aka WANA, is a 5.4 GHz wireless network located in Amaliada, Greece. The network links many users from several areas of the town and suburbs as it offers broadband services always by encountering the settings for safe telecommunications as they are defined by Greek National Board of Telecommunications and Posts. There are over 40 similar communities in other Greek cities, a statistic information that makes Greece a pioneer in wireless networking. WANA is a non-commercial, scientific and technological club. The full appellation of it is "Wireless Amateur Network of Amaliada" or in Greek "Ασύρματο Ερασιτεχνικό Δίκτυο Αμαλιάδας" which was established in 2006 with its headquarters placed in Amaliada of Ilia County. At this moment it offers free wireless access to the city community from the more than seven hotspots which they are installed around the city and its suburbs. There is also a core of users in the nearby city of Gastouni that soon will be connected with the network by a dedicated link, the wireless dedicated link with the Wireless Metropolitan Network of Patras lies in its final level.
South African wireless community networks are wireless networks that allow members to talk, send messages, share files and play games independent of the commercial landline and mobile telephone networks. Most of them use WiFi technology and many are wireless mesh networks. A wireless community network may connect to the public switched telephone network and/or the Internet, but there are various restrictions on connectivity in South Africa. Wireless community networks are particularly useful in areas where commercial telecommunications services are unavailable or unaffordable.
Wireless Thessaloniki is an experimental wireless community network growing in the air of Thessaloniki, Greece. It is one of the first wireless networks deployed in the city.
RootMetrics offers scientifically collected and crowdsourced mobile network performance information to consumers and the industry. The firm captures user information by testing network performance when consumers are using their mobile phone for voice or data communications.
