ZyXEL Communications NWA-1100 User Manual

 Chapter 1 Introducing the ZyXEL Device

ZyXEL NWA-1100 User’s Guide

The ZyXEL Device can act as a wireless network bridge and establish wireless links with 
other APs. In the figure below, the ZyXEL Devices (A, B and Z) are connected to independent 
wired networks and have a bridge connection (A can communicate with B and Z) at the same 
time. Security between bridged APs (the Wireless Distribution System or WDS) is 
independent of the security between the wired networks and their respective APs. If you do not 
enable WDS security, traffic between APs is not encrypted. When WDS security is enabled, 
both APs must use the same pre-shared key. See 

 for more details. 

Once the security settings of peer sides match one another, the connection between devices is 
made.
At the time of writing, WDS security is compatible with other ZyXEL NWA-series access 
points only. Refer to your other access point’s documentation for details. 

Figure 3   Bridge Application

In the example below, when both ZyXEL Devices are in Bridge mode, they form a WDS 
(Wireless Distribution System) allowing the computers in LAN 1 to connect to the computers 
in LAN 2.