ZyXEL Communications NXC8160 User Manual

 Chapter 3 LAN Screen

NXC-8160 User’s Guide

A VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) allows a physical network to be partitioned into 
multiple logical networks. Stations on a logical network can belong to more than one group. 
Only stations within the same group can talk to each other. With VLAN, a device cannot 
directly talk to or hear from devices that are not in the same group(s) unless such traffic first 
goes through a router. 

In traditional switched environments, all broadcast packets go to each and every individual 
port. With VLAN, all broadcasts are confined to a specific broadcast domain. SSIDs in the 
same VLAN group share the same broadcast domain thus increase network performance 
through reduced broadcast traffic. 

VLAN on the NXC-8160 allows you to: 

• Provide security and isolation among the LAN IP addresses and SSIDs. 
• Stop an SSID from accessing the Internet.
• Prevent two SSIDs from communicating with each other or allow specific SSIDs to 

communicate with each other.

• Improve network performance.
• Provide different services to different VLAN groups by connecting to another VLAN-

aware switch.

The NXC-8160 supports IEEE 802.1q VLAN tagging. Tagged VLAN uses an explicit tag 
(VLAN ID) in the MAC header of a frame to identify VLAN membership. The NXC-8160 can 
identify VLAN tags for incoming Ethernet frames and add VLAN tags to outgoing Ethernet 
frames.

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When VLAN is enabled, you must connect the NXC-8160 to a VLAN-aware 
device.

In this example, there is an NXC-8160 and a VLAN-aware switch A in your network. The 
NXC-8160 is connected to port 4 on switch A. Port 5 on switch A is the uplink port and 
connected to the Internet. You configure the following VLAN settings on switch A and the 
NXC-8160.

VLAN 101

Port 1, 4

LAN IP Address