wouldn't be zapped out of existence. Products that merited UL certification
also had to be of good-enough quality to keep it. Well, where quality and cer-
tification are concerned, the world of Wi-Fi is no less in need of a watchdog
organization.
Wireless networking was just starting to peek out of the corporate box at
the end of the last century. So, to promote wireless networking by giving
the public some confidence in the products they purchased, the computer
industry formed a trade group known as the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility
Alliance (WECA) in 1999. WECA certifies that products manufactured under
various wireless standards have the specs to meet those standards -- and
that they're interoperable with each other.
Somewhere along the line some sharp individual got the bright idea to trade-
mark the catchy name Wi-Fi. One thing led to another and, presto change-o,
WECA became the Wi-Fi Alliance -- new name, same job. Wi-Fi Certified
products can be identified by looking for the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED logo, shown
in Figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1: The Wi-Fi Certified logo.
The logo also includes a bit of information concerning which standard the
device meets and with which standards the device is compatible. Here's
the gist:
Products displaying the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED logo are guaranteed to be inter-
operable with other Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products built to the same or com-
patible standards.
Products built to the 802.11a standard (which doesn't specify compati-
bility with any other standard) don't have to be compatible with those
built to the 802.11g standard in order to be Wi-Fi certified.
Products built to the 802.11g standard must be compatible with 802.11b.
In addition, because the Wi-Fi Alliance has certified their compliance
with the g standard, they're guaranteed to interoperate with b-standard
products.
Chapter 2: Selecting a Standard
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