Week 9: Muddy/Wi-Fi

I, as I believe so many others have, always assumed that the term "Wi-Fi" was short for "Wireless Fidelity."  However after this week's lesson I now realize that in all actuality that is completely wrong.  In fact, Wi-Fi isn't even short for anything, it is simply a name which refers to a range of connectivity technologies.  This comes as a surprise to me, so I decided to write my blog about it so I could research it further.

Before the name Wi-Fi came in to play, the name given by the Wi-Fi Alliance was IEEE 802. 11.  However, this name was obviously not suitable as a reference to Wi-Fi.  So the Wi-Fi Alliance hired a firm called the Interbrand Corporation to determine a name that was "a little catchier."  What they came up with was Wi-Fi, which wasn't supposed to be short for anything.  People began to associate Wi-Fi with Wireless Fidelity because the Wi-Fi Alliance itself had often used this phrase in its press releases and documents.  They also incorporated the advertising slogan "The standard for Wireless Fidelity," but later removed the phrase from their marketing.  Despite this, some documents from the Alliance dated 2003 and 2004 still contain the term "Wireless Fidelity."  There was no official statement related to the dropping of the term.

Below I have included a graphical image of the yin-yang style Wi-Fi logo, which was also created by the Interbrand firm.  The yin-yang logo indicates the certification of a product for interoperability.

I think that this is an interesting fact that most people don't realize, and now that I have researched it I feel that I am more knowledgeable about Wi-Fi and its uses and functions.


Websites cited:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi