What does WiFi stand for? - was - Re: [LINK] LA joins Philadelphia in Free city wide WiFi

[Geoffrey Ramadan]

We are involved in the deployment of wireless warehousing (for RF 
warehousing applications) and at the time (about the year 2000) the 
migration from various proprietary wireless standards to the new "open" 
IEEE802.11 wireless standard.

The only problem was that you could not guarantee interoperability 
between wireless infrastructure and in our case a plethora of RF enabled 
mobile barcoding terminals.

In order to mitigate this, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) standards were 
introduced, and the Wi-Fi alliance was established. 
http://www.wifialliance.com/, which provided a certification program and 
the use of logo (under licence) which independently validated a Wi-Fi 
product (for a fee)

This has been an important tool in our industry in establishing 
confidence in End users, System Integrators and Vendors.

Though it is probably less an issue these days, but Vendors continue to 
support Wi-Fi certification to ensure this. eg.
http://www.intermec.com/eprise/main/Intermec/Content/Products/Products_ShowDetail?Product=CMPTRCK30C
(look for the Wi-Fi logo)

In short a Wi-Fi  *certified* device has been tested to be compliant 
against the relevant IEEE802.11 standard.

Regards
Geoffrey Ramadan B.E.(Elec)
Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Association (www.adca.com.au)
and
Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.umd.com.au)




Adam Todd wrote:
>
> OK, in several discussions this week I have or others have posed the 
> question:
>
> What does WiFi stand for?
>
>
>
> The "Wi" we know means wireless.
>
> But traditionally the "Fi" means fidelity.
>
>
>
> Can anyone on link - WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP - pose their suggestions.
>
> I am yet to look it up anywhere and don't want to influence my position!