What is wi-fi

Asks howardpiercy

A. Wi-fi stands for wireless fidelity.

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Q. What is wireless fidelity

A. Wireless fidelity or wi-fi is another name for the IEEE 802.11b standard which provides wireless Ethernet transmission, primarily between laptops and local access nodes that attach to your standard corporate LAN. It transmits in the unlicensed spectrum 2.5GHz (or radio band) and can achieve speeds of up to 11Mbps. Wi-fi is a term that has been adopted and promoted by the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance - WECA which promotes interoperability.

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Products with a Wi-fi trademark are interoperable with each other, even if they are made by different manufacturers - so a user with a wi-fi product can use any brand of access point with any other brand of client hardware that is built to the wi-fi standard.

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Q. What are the benefits of using wi-fi

A. The benefits of using wireless Ethernet took a long time to be realised, because connections always took longer than those with wires - so many people thought what's the point of developing it. But since the rise of portability -especially the use of laptops - it is beginning to come into its own. Its benefits now include flexible ways of working on a PC i.e. the ability to use a laptop in any environment; it provides a seamless add-on to an Ethernet intranet and it offers roaming capabilities for mobile users. And since the standard has been developed it now achieves the same performance as a wired 10BaseT LAN connection.

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Q. What types of companies are employing wi-fi

A. In Europe the emphasis has definitely been on 3G so wi-fi has had quite a low profile here over the past year or so, but it the US it is being seen as the next big thing because it is so versatile. It is very popular on university campuses where laptops can be used anywhere and obtain Internet connections without having the hassle of plugging them into the wall or phone socket. Wi-fi is particularly popular with students at MIT, Stanford and the Carnegie Mellon universities in the US.

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Small and large businesses are also employing wi-fi as they can get rid of all or almost all the cable in their offices. Hotels and airports (including airports in the UK and Finland) are also viewing the new technology favourably as it allows their guests and passengers respectively, to access the Internet from anywhere in their buildings. The coffee chain Starbucks announced earlier this year that it had done a deal with Microsoft to offer wi-fi connections in its cafes. Wi-fi is also backed by many industry heavyweights like Lucent, Microsoft, 3Com etc.

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Q. So if wi-fi is so pervasive and a great way of operating mobile technology, why hasn’t it taken off over here

A. It is beginning to become more popular in Europe, but it does have some obstacles to beat before it can be welcomed with open arms. Bluetooth is another standard that has been developed in Europe for wireless LANs and it does not work with wi-fi - and as they use the same wireless spectrum they currently clash causing interference. Bluetooth is also cheaper to use and does not require a radio base station in which to work because every Bluetooth device creates (or can create) its own local network. Industry experts believe that wi-fi may well have to move radio spectrums up to 5.2GHz, which is not available worldwide and therefore not as popular. In addition, many believe that security on wi-fi is too weak.

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Against this is the argument that Wi-fi has a greater range than Bluetooth - 100ft compared with 30ft and is also a lot faster. In addition, Frost and Sullivan have forecast that wi-fi manufacturers will generate a revenue of US$884 million by 2002 and Cahners In-Stat Group suggests that more than 10 million Wi-Fi products will be installed by the end of 2001.

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Q. When did wi-fi products first enter the marketplace

A. They began to be sold in the first quarter of 2000 - in the US initially.

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If you require any further information on wi-fi it can be obtained online from the following websites: http://www.wirelessethernet.org/mission.asp, http://www.wi-fi.net, and http://www.80211-planet.com.

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In addition, there is a full article about Bluetooth on the Answerbank at: Article.go id=1109&category_id=null

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If you have any other Internet & Technology related questions, please click here

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By Karen Anderson