Internet & Wi‑Fi glossary

Short definitions of common home-networking terms.

Access point

Device or function that provides a Wi‑Fi connection into a local network.

The link carrying traffic from an access point or mesh node toward the rest of the network.

Capacity of a communication link; commonly expressed in Mbps or Gbps.

Protocol commonly used to assign IP configuration to devices automatically.

Domain Name System; distributed system that maps domain names to network information.

Family of wired local-area networking technologies.

Device that connects one network to another; in homes, often the router facing the ISP.

Variation in packet delay over time.

Delay between sending data and receiving a response or arrival at a destination.

Consumer WLAN architecture with multiple coordinated nodes managed as one system.

Device that interfaces with an ISP access technology such as cable or DSL.

Optical Network Terminal; device that terminates a fiber access connection.

Device that forwards packets between networks.

Service Set Identifier; the network name users normally see for a Wi‑Fi network.

Useful data rate actually achieved over a connection.

Current Wi‑Fi Alliance security generation for protected Wi‑Fi networks.

Wi‑Fi 6 / 802.11ax operation extended into the 6 GHz band.

Wi‑Fi generation associated with IEEE 802.11be-2024.