Wi-Fi
Surfing on the Road with Wi-Fi
Local wireless internet access has become synonymous with the term WiFi. If you want to go browsing online with your laptop, netbook or mobile handset suitably equipped with WiFi, you go to the mall or café that is said to be “hotspot.” That means it’s has a local area network with a broadband connection to any Internet Service provider and an access device that broadcasts a radio frequency spectrum allowed for WiFi operation.
If your mobile handset detects this, it can tune into it an get into a handshake protocol to initiate an internet session provided the access is not restricted. Otherwise, your handset or laptop will prompt your for a password.
Some people may have mistakenly understood WiFi to mean “Wireless fidelity” from the more familiar term HiFi which meant High Fidelity in stereo systems. It doesn’t really stand for any specific phrase. Wi-Fi is just a trademarked term to stand for the IEEE 802.11x. wireless networking standard.
A Technical Definition
WiFi has come to stand for the slew of wireless LAN standards defined by the WiFi Alliance, the organization that has the trademark rights to the term which is technical defined as any "wireless local area network (WLAN) products that are based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) 802.11 standards." In its early days, WiFi referred only to the 802.11b standard using 2.4Ghz spectrum.
But over the years, the WiFi Alliance has used the term as an umbrella for all WLAN products using any of the IEEE 802.11 telecommunications standard that includes 802.11a dual band all the way to its variants. These days, you see WLAN specification on mobile handsets with the WiFi 802.11 b/g specified on it. This particular Wi-Fi variant enjoys popular support from various mobile device makers.
They include video game consoles, PDAs and mobile phones as well as netbooks and laptops. Any gadget with the “WiFi Certified” label indicates it has passed the WiFi Alliance certification and can access any similarly certified WiFi access point. The certification indicates what frequency it can recognize, usually 2.5Ghz for 802.11b,g,n and 5Ghz for 802.11a.
