nted protocol A communications protocol or transmission procedure in which con- trol information in encoded in fields of one or more bits. bit rate The speed at which bits are transmitted, usually expressed in bits per second (bps). blocking A network in which there are connection sets that prevent some additional desired connections from being set up between unused ports, even with rearrangement of existing con- nections. Blowfish A 64-bit block code that has key lengths of 32 to 448 bits. Blowfish is used in more than 100 products, and it is viewed as one of the best available encryption algorithms. Bluetooth A WPAN technology that is an open standard for short-range transmission of digi- tal voice and data that supports point-to-point and multipoint applications, providing up to 720Kbps data transfer with a range of 33 feet (10 m) and up to 330 feet (100 m) with a power boost. A Bluetooth chip is a very low-cost chip that gives a device short-range wireless capability. PDAs, laptops, mobile phones, and other intelligent appliances embedded with Bluetooth chips can communicate and link with each other wirelessly. BNC connector A commonly used plug and socket that provides a tight connection for audio, video, and networking applications. Thinnet uses BNC connectors. board A circuit card on which integrated circuits are mounted. BPL (broadband over powerlines) Another term for PLT. bps (bits per second) A measure of the data transfer rate possible on a digital communica- tions line. For example, a 10Gbps backbone can support 10 billion bits per second. Bytes are used as a measure of storage, so a 10GB hard drive is not the same thing as a 10Gbps communi- cations link. The abbreviation Kbps is used for thousands of bits per second; Mbps is used for millions of bits per second; Gbps is used for billions of bits per second; Tbps is used for trillions of bits per second; Pbps is used for 1,000Tbps; and Ebps is used for 1 billion Gbps. Glossary BPSK (Binary Phase-Shift Keying) BPSK (Binary Phase-Shift Keying) The simp