DEFINITIONS - 8

idle power indicator (IPI): A physical layer (PHY) indication of the total channel power (noise and
interference) as measured in the channel at the receiving antenna connector while the station (STA) is idle,
i.e., neither transmitting nor receiving a frame.
IEEE 802.1X authentication: Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) authentication transported by the
IEEE 802.1X protocol.
independent basic service set (IBSS): A basic service set (BSS) that forms a self-contained network, and in
which no access to a distribution system (DS) is available.
individual address: A medium access control (MAC) address in which the group bit is 0. Syn: directed
address, unicast address.
individually addressed: When applied to a medium access control (MAC) service data unit (MSDU), it is
an MSDU with an individual address as the destination address (DA). When applied to a MAC protocol data
unit (MPDU), it is an MPDU with an individual address in the Address 1 field. Syn: directed, unicast.
infrastructure: The infrastructure includes the distribution system medium (DSM), access point (AP), and
portal entities. It is also the logical location of distribution and integration service functions of an extended
service set (ESS). An infrastructure contains one or more APs and zero or more portals in addition to the
distribution system (DS).
infrastructure authorization information: The information that specifies the access rights of the user of a
non-access-point (non-AP) station (STA). This information might include the rules for routing the user
traffic, a set of permissions about services that a user is allowed to access, quality-of-service (QoS)
configuration information, or the accounting policy to be applied by the infrastructure.
integration service: The service that enables delivery of medium access control (MAC) service data units
(MSDUs) between the distribution system (DS) and a local area network (LAN) (via a portal).
integrity GTK (IGTK): A random value, assigned by the broadcast/multicast source STA, which is used to
protect group addressed medium access control (MAC) management protocol data units (MMPDUs) from
that source STA.
light sleep mode: A mesh power mode in which the mesh station (STA) operates either in the Awake state
or in the Doze state towards a neighbor mesh STA, and is expected to receive beacons from this neighbor
peer mesh STA.
link: In the context of an IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) entity, a physical path consisting of
exactly one traversal of the wireless medium (WM) that is used to transfer an MAC service data unit
(MSDU) between two stations (STAs).
link margin: Ratio of the received signal power to the minimum required by the station (STA). The STA
might incorporate rate information and channel conditions, including interference, into its computation of
link margin. The specific algorithm for computing the link margin is implementation dependent.
link metric: A criterion used to characterize the performance, quality, and eligibility of a link.
little endian: The concept that, for a given multi-octet numeric representation, the least significant octet has
the lowest address.
liveness: A demonstration that the peer is actually participating in this instance of communication.