Wi-Fi

Wi -Fi ( English pronunciation: [ ˌ waɪ̯ faɪ̯ ] ) refers to both a consortium of companies, the devices with wireless interfaces certified, as well as the associated brand name.

Wi- Fi is a fictional concept of art for marketing purposes without ( akronymische ) Meaning, he does not stand for "Wireless Fidelity ", as one might assume, for example, to hi-fi according to popular analogy. However, he was very well understood by the Wi- Fi Alliance as a pun on " Hi- Fi".

In many countries (USA, UK, Canada, Spain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, South Africa, Chile, Malta, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Uruguay and Others and since 2014 also Germany ) is used as a synonym for WLAN Wi -Fi. Strictly speaking, however, are Wi-Fi and Wi -Fi is not the same, WiFi refers to the wireless network, Wi -Fi, however, the wireless standard. In practice, both terms but only together before, so they are used usually as synonyms.

Consortium

The Wi- Fi Alliance is an organization in 1999 originally under the name WECA (Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance ) was founded, over 300 enterprises with comprehensive, the certified products from different manufacturers based on the IEEE 802.11 standards and so the operation with different wireless devices guaranteed ( interoperability). The background was that was not fully implemented in many products the standard or softened by proprietary extensions. This often resulted in incompatibilities between products from different manufacturers.

The Wi -Fi Alliance tests corresponding components according to their own guidelines. Products that pass the test, get the Wi -Fi certification and may thus carry the Wi- Fi logo. However, only the products of the Wi -Fi Members are tested. Members must be in addition to the membership fee for each tested component to pay a fee. A lack of Wi- Fi logo is therefore not necessarily a deviation from the standard dar.

The consortium announced on 31 October 2002 announced with Wi- Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a subset of the then future IEEE 802.11i as a new encryption technique to establish in order to replace the existing as insecure WEP encryption procedure prior to the adoption of the new standards. After the adoption of 802.11i, the Wi -Fi coined by analogy, the term WPA2.

Members (selection):

  • 3Com
  • Acer
  • Alcatel- Lucent
  • Analog Devices
  • Apple
  • Archos
  • Asus
  • AT & T
  • Buffalo
  • Canon
  • Cisco
  • Dell
  • D-Link
  • Edimax
  • Freescale Semiconductor
  • Hewlett -Packard
  • HP Palm
  • HTC Corporation
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