COMMON ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

The WiMAX / wireless broadband industry, as a tech-oriented market, is rife with jargon. Sageni has provided the list below of most of the most common abbreviations. Our list originates from an online post made by Patrick Leary in early 2001 and then updated in summer 2007. Those of you that are are wonks (like we are) are invited to send Sageni additonal terms. Send them via our Contact page.

477 (Form 477) -FCC's mandatory broadband reporting form for commercial operators

AAA server - authentication authorization accounting server

APD - automatic protocol detection

AES OCB - usually just called "AES," advanced encryption standard offset code book

AIFS - arbitration inter-frame spacing

AP - access point

ARK - automatic retransmission queing

ARS - automatic rate switching

ASN-GW - access service network gateway

ATPC - automatic transmit power control

AU - access unit (generally same as AP above though AP is the standard term for WLAN)

AWS - advanced wireless service frequencies (paired 1.7/2.1 GHz range)

BE - best effort

BER - bit error rate

BRS - Broadband Radio Service (commercial side of the 2.5 GHz allocation in the US, formerly MMDS)

BSS - basic service set

BST - base station (referred more often this way in licensed networks)

BWA - broadband wireless access

BWIA - broadband wireless Internet access (Steve Stroh's preferred acronym for the market)

CBR - constant bit rate

CC - convolutional coding

CDL - cell distance learning (refers to an automatic process within RF devices)

CDMA - code division multiple access

CG (or UGS) - constant grant or unsolicited grant service

CIR - committed information rate

CoS - class of service CPE - customer premises equipment

C/I - carrier to interference ratio

CSMA/CA - carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance

EBS - Educational Broadband Spectrum (2.5 GHz allocated to non-profits, may be sublet, formerly ITFS (Instructional Fixed Television Service)

DFS - dynamic frequency selection

DFS2 or DFS+ - second generation DFS (mandated for all new 5.3 and all 5.4 GHz)

DIFS - distributed coordination function inter-frame spacing)

DS (or DSSS) - direct sequence spread spectrum

EIRP - effective isotropic radiated power (expressed in dB)

EMI - electromagnetic interference

ESSID - extended service set ID

FCC - Federal Communications Commission

FDD - frequency division duplex

FEQ - forward error correction

FFT - fast fourier transform mathematical algorithm

FH (or FHSS) - frequency hopping spread spectrum

FIPS - federal information processing standards

GFSK - Gausian frequency shift keying

HIPAA - Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

IC - Industry Canada (Canadian peer to FCC)

IDU - indoor unit

IF - intermediate frequency

ISM - Industrial, Scientific, and Medical

LOS - Line of sight

LQI - link quality indicator

LTE - long term evolution

MAC - media access control

MAN - metropolitan area network

MIB - management information bit(s)

MIR - maximum information rate

NLOS - Near/non LOS

NMS - network management system

NPU - network processing unit

OA&M - operation, administration & maintenance

ODU - outdoor unit

OET - Office of Engineering and Technology (FCC division responsible for equipment authorization and rules enforcement)

OFDM - orthogonal frequency division multiplexing

OFDMA - orthogonal frequency division multiple access

OBE or OOBE - out-of-band emissions

PAN - personal area network

Part 15 - refers to FCC regulations in Part 15.247 of the Federal Code governing certain UL bands

PIU - power interface unit

PoE - power over Ethernet

PtMP or PmP - point-to-multipoint PtP - Point-to-point

QAM - quadrature amplitude modulation

QinQ - VLAN type that allows customer to have own VLAN inside the operator's VLAN

QoS - quality of service

RAN - radio access network

RFI - radio frequency interference

RSSI - receive(r) signal strength index/indication

rtPS - real time polling services

RTS/CTS - request to send, clear to send

Rx - receive

RTCP - real time control protocol

RTP - real time protocol

SCADA - supervisory control and data acquisition

SDR - software defined radio

SIF - short inter-frame spacing

SIP - session initiation protocol

SNR - signal to noise ratio

SOFDMA - scalable orthogonal frequency division multiple access

STC - space time coding

TDD - time division duplex

TDMA - time division multiple access

TVoIP - TV over IP

Tx - transmit

UL - offen used to abbreviate "unlicensed," but also could mean "uplink"

UNII - Universal Information Infrastructure (refers to rules governing 5.15-5.25, 5.25-5.35, 5.47-5.725,5.725-5.825 GHz frequencies)

VLAN - virtual LAN

VoIP - voice over IP

VPN - virtual private network

VOFDM - vector OFDM

WCS - Wireless Communications Service (2.3 GHz licensed band)

WEP - wired equivalent privacy

WiMAX - wireless interoperability, microwave access

WLAN - wireless LAN

WLL - wireless local loop