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Networking & Telecommunications vocabulary · Wireless and Mobile Networks

SSID

Meaning in networking & telecommunications, with examples

/ˌes es aɪ ˈdiː/abbreviationCommon term

In networking & telecommunications, SSID means: Short for service set identifier: the name of a Wi-Fi network, up to 32 characters long, that devices see in their list of available networks.

In Turkish: kablosuz ağ adı, SSID

How it is used

Spelled out letter by letter. Engineers create, broadcast, hide and rename SSIDs, and usually map each SSID to a VLAN: one for staff, one for guests, one for IoT devices. Too many SSIDs on the same access points waste airtime.

Example sentences

  1. Visitors should join the 'Guest' SSID, not the corporate one.

  2. We hid the SSID for the barcode scanners so it doesn't appear in people's Wi-Fi lists.

Common collocations

  • broadcast an SSID
  • hidden SSID
  • guest SSID
  • map an SSID to a VLAN
  • Wi-FiThe common name for wireless local networks based on the IEEE 802.11 standards, which connect devices to a network by radio, mainly in the 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz bands.
  • access pointA device, usually mounted on a ceiling or wall, that sends and receives Wi-Fi signals and connects wireless devices to the wired network.
  • VLANShort for virtual LAN: a separate logical network created on a switch, so that devices plugged into the same hardware, for example staff PCs, guests and cameras, can be kept apart.
  • signal strengthHow strong a received Wi-Fi or mobile signal is, usually measured in dBm; values closer to zero are stronger, so -55 dBm is better than -80 dBm.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Wireless and Mobile Networks

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