W¶
W-CDMA¶
Wideband CDMA. The UMTS air interface, which uses direct-sequence CDMA over pairs of 5 MHz channels.
W3C¶
World Wide Web Consortium. The international body, founded by Tim Berners-Lee, that develops standards for the web, such as HTML, CSS and XML.
Walkthrough¶
An informal review in which the author takes one or more people through an artefact to find defects.
See also: Review, Desk Check.
WAN¶
Wide Area Network. A network that spans a large area, linking sites in different cities or countries, usually over carriers’ circuits. The internet is the largest WAN.
WAN.
WANET¶
Wireless Ad hoc Network. A decentralised wireless network with no routers or access points, in which every node forwards traffic for the others. A MANET is the mobile kind.
See also: MANET, Wireless Mesh Network.
WAP¶
Wireless Access Point. A device that lets Wi-Fi devices connect to a wired network. WAP also stood for Wireless Application Protocol, an early way of browsing on mobile phones.
See also: Wi-Fi, Wireless Repeater.
Waterfall¶
A sequential development model in which work flows through requirements, design, construction, testing and deployment, each finished before the next starts. Winston Royce’s 1970 paper, often cited as its origin, described it as risky.
Waterfall.
See also: Waterfall Lifecycle, V Model, Spiral Model.
Waterfall Lifecycle¶
A lifecycle that moves through ordered phases, from concept to delivery, with a review at the end of each.
See also: Waterfall.
WBC¶
Wholesale Broadband Connect. BT Wholesale’s broadband access product on the 21CN network. ISPs connect at regional aggregation points to collect their customers’ traffic.
WBC.
WBCC¶
Wholesale Broadband Connect Converge. A BT Wholesale package, based on WBC, that combined voice and broadband on one bill for the ISP.
See also: WBC.
WBMC¶
Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect. A BT Wholesale product, built on WBC, in which BT carries the traffic end to end to a single handover point. It replaced IPStream.
Weekly Individual Plan¶
A plan in which each person sets their miniature milestones for the week.
See also: Miniature Milestone.
WEP¶
Wired Equivalent Privacy. The original Wi-Fi security from 1997, which is easily broken. WPA and WPA2 replaced it, and it was deprecated in 2004.
What Requirement¶
Why Requirement¶
See Business Requirement.
Wi-Fi¶
Wireless LAN technology based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. Wi-Fi is the Wi-Fi Alliance’s trademark for certified products. Recent generations are numbered, such as Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be).
See also: 802.11, WAP, WPA2, SSID.
Wiki¶
A website that its users edit together in the browser, usually with simple markup.
See also: Document Collaboration, Knowledge Management.
WiMAX¶
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. Wireless broadband based on the IEEE 802.16 standards, promoted as an alternative to DSL and as a 4G candidate. LTE won out.
See also: LTE (4G).
WIN-T¶
Warfighter Information Network-Tactical. The US Army’s mobile tactical communications network, giving units secure voice, data and video on the move without fixed infrastructure.
WIN-T.
See also: MANET.
Wireless Mesh Network¶
A wireless network in which nodes connect in a mesh and relay traffic for each other, with some nodes acting as gateways to a wired network. The nodes rarely move, so routes stay stable.
Wireless Mesh Network.
See also: WANET, MANET, Network Topologies.
Wireless Repeater¶
A device that receives a Wi-Fi signal and rebroadcasts it to extend coverage. Also called a range extender.
See also: WAP.
Wireshark¶
A free, open-source packet analyser, formerly called Ethereal, used for troubleshooting networks and developing protocols.
Wireshark.
See also: Packet sniffing.
WISP¶
Wireless ISP. An internet service provider whose access network is wireless, such as fixed wireless or Wi-Fi.
WISP.
See also: ISP.
WLR¶
Wholesale Line Rental. A UK product that let a provider rent a phone line from Openreach and bill the customer for line and calls. It is being withdrawn as the copper phone network closes.
WMA¶
Windows Media Audio. Microsoft’s family of audio codecs, including lossy, professional, lossless and voice versions.
Work Breakdown Structure¶
WBS. A hierarchical breakdown of all a project’s work into work packages. Larger projects keep it as a separate document; smaller ones hold it in the work plan or schedule.
See also: Work Package, Work Plan.
Work Item¶
A unit of tracked work, such as a task, story or defect. Also used for the artefact the work produces.
Work Package¶
The lowest level of a work breakdown structure, often a tangible deliverable, which is broken down further into activities and tasks for estimating and scheduling.
See also: Work Breakdown Structure.
Work Plan¶
A plan of the work packages and their task estimates, used to plan, track and control detailed work.
See also: Work Package, Detailed Schedule, Earned Value.
Work Product¶
See Artefact.
WPA2¶
Wi-Fi Protected Access 2. The Wi-Fi security certification, from 2004, based on the full IEEE 802.11i standard with AES encryption. It replaced WEP and WPA, and WPA3 now succeeds it.
WPS¶
Wi-Fi Protected Setup. A Wi-Fi Alliance scheme, from 2006, for adding devices to a network with a button or PIN rather than a passphrase. The PIN method is insecure and should be disabled.
See also: WPA2.
Write-only code¶
Code so hard to read that nobody, often not even its author, can understand it later.
See also: Construction Standard.
WS-BPEL¶
Web Services Business Process Execution Language. The full name of BPEL.
WSDL¶
Web Services Description Language. An XML language for describing a web service’s interface: its operations, messages, data types and endpoints. It is mostly used with SOAP.
WSDL.
See also: SOAP, XML Schema.