Frequently Asked Questions: Education Center

What does Wireless mean?
"Wireless" may describe voice and messaging devices, computer networks or broadband services that provide the last link between the consumer and the Internet. All of these applications work without a hard-wired connection, but are very different in other ways.

What does Voice and Messaging mean?
Cell phones, pagers and two-way radios provide wireless voice and messaging services. These devices may be based on analog or digital standards and typically operate within networks governed or run by carriers such as Sprint, Verizon and local phone companies. Their coverage area varies, and each operates on different frequency bands allocated by the FCC.

What does Hand-held and Internet-enabled Devices mean?
Cellular phones that are Internet capable and personal digital assistants (PDAs, such as the Blackberry) connect to the Internet across a digital wireless cellular network. The underlying technology is based on cellular telephone communication and is usable wherever cellular service providers have coverage.

What does Local Area Networks mean?
Wireless local area networks (WLANs) extend the reach of wired local area networks (LANs) within a building, providing the final few meters of connectivity between a wired network and the computer user.

What does Broadband mean?
Wireless broadband allows the simultaneous high-speed delivery of voice, data and video via the Internet, without the inconvenience of a wired connection. Wired Internet connectivity is provided through digital subscriber lines (DSL) or cables that run between a provider (such as Qwest or Comcast) and the consumer. Wireless broadband providers, such as LP Broadband, transmit signals through the air from an access point to a radio mounted on the user's rooftop. Wireless broadband offers consumers an alternative to DSL and cable in metropolitan areas. In areas beyond the reach of these wired technologies, wireless broadband delivers high speed Internet access to those who otherwise would not have it.

What is the difference between your broadband wireless service and DSL or Cable?
With our 3rd generation wireless technology: the connection between our server and your house is set typically to 2 Mb/sec (i.e., that's the maximum data rate that can be transmitted/received.) Note that the transmission rate you'll see is limited by the capacity of the connection between our server and our upstream internet providers, and will be increased as we add more subscribers. With hard line connections, the connection between the server and your house is much more limited--anywhere from 256K/512K (DSL) to 1.2Mb/sec (Cable).

What is an IP address?
An IP address identifies a specific computer logged onto the Internet or logged onto any IP-based network. One way to think of an IP address is by comparing it to a street address. Each house on a street has its own unique address to make it easy to find. Besides assigning an "address" to a specific computer on the Internet, an IP address can specify a destination on the Internet such as a website.

What does an IP address look like?
Each IP address is comprised of 4 sets of numbers that range from 0 to 255. These numbers are referred to as "octets". Each octet is separated by a dot (.) when using traditional dotted decimal format. An IP address looks like this: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. Because the maximum value of each octet is 255, there are a finite number of IP addresses available for use on the Internet. IP addresses range from 000.000.000.000 to 255.255.255.255. Most installations are done with LP Broadband providing the IP address (DHCP). If you require a static IP address, we can provide you one.

How can we keep adding more computers to the Internet if there is a infinite number of IP addresses?
The networking community has come up with creative ways to optimize the use of IP addresses so that we can keep adding more hosts to the Internet. A protocol called Network Address Translation (NAT) is one method of conservation of IP address space. Additionally, ISPs have methods of assigning IP addresses to more than one customer.

NAT: Private IPs versus Public IPs
NAT allows many computers on the Internet to use the same IP address. This is done through the assignment of "private" IP addresses. A private IP address is an address that is used for an internal network. An example of an internal network is a business office that has computers networked together which also have access to the Internet. Each computer in the office can be assigned a private IP address. This type of network may be referred to as a "private network". The networking community has set aside a group of IP addresses to be used as private IP addresses for internal networks. The most common private IP addresses look like: 10.xxx.xxx.xxx or 192.168.xxx.xxx. All other IP addresses which are not specifically set aside to be used as private IP addresses are called public IP addresses. Computers on a private network access the Internet through a device known as the "gateway" device. In this scenario, the gateway device is assigned a public IP address and runs the NAT protocol. All data sent from a computer on the private network out to the Internet is sent through the gateway. Devices on the Internet see only the public IP address assigned to the gateway, they never see the private IP address assigned to the computer. NAT allows multiple private networks to use the same IP addresses because these private addresses are always translated by the gateway into a unique public IP address. LP Broadband recommends the use of NAT to all customers where appropriate. If you have a small network of computers and do not have a server on your network, NAT is an excellent option for your IP addressing needs. It is not only more secure and less expensive, it helps us do our part in conserving the Internet's limited IP address space.

Reusing IP addresses: Static versus Dynamic
LP Broadband's customers are set up with an IP address that is dynamically assigned (DHCP). Customers can optionally choose to have a static address that will always have the same address whenever it is logged on to the Internet. Alternately, a computer with a dynamically assigned address will have a different IP address each time the machine logs on. Dynamic address assignments allow ISPs to use a small pool of IP addresses for a large number of customers. Most users of the Internet will never need a static IP address. There are certain devices on the Internet (such as web servers) that must have a static IP address.