SCHOOL ON DIGITAL RADIO
COMMUNICATION FOR TRAINING & RESEARCH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
DATE:
Prepared by Huda
M. A. El Hag
The 8th
day of the school started with a lecture titled Hardware for WLANs by Professor
E. Pietrosemoli. The lecture was mainly about all the different hardware needed to create
a wireless network “shopping list”. The main components discussed were antennas,
antenna cables and connectors, lightning arrestors, pigtails
(used to connect an external antenna), wireless cards and bus adapters, access
points and amplifiers. Proffessor E. Pietrosemoli
discussed these components and gave some specifications and prices from
different manufacturers, and also discussed how to choose different component models
for different network conditions. The lecturer also discussed the different
network standards ( 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g).
The second lecture was titled Networking Basics, Routing and Subnetting and was presented by Mr. Carlo Fonda. The lecturer discussed the different layers of the OSI model at the start of the lecture specifying the functionality of each layer and comparing between the OSI model and the TCP/IP reference model. Mr. Fonda then discussed the following issues - types of networks, network topologies, and the different components (network adapters, repeaters, hubs, switches, bridges, routers and gateways) of the network and at which layers of the reference model they operate. Mr. Fonda then presented the concepts of routing and subnetting, discussing the different network classes and how routers work.
The last part of the day was a practical session , titled Routing and Subnetting with Linux and Access Point configuration and setup of a WLAN. Mr. Fonda presented the theoretical background and showed how to apply it practically specified the available hardware and the number of participant groups and then asked the participants to design a network using the available components. The network design was agreed upon by all the participants. The participants then started the setup and configuration of the different network components.