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The Wi-Fi Alliance: An In-Depth Look

What is the Wi-Fi Alliance?
The Wi-Fi Alliance is the global Wi-Fi® organization that created the Wi-Fi brand. A nonprofit organization, the Alliance was formed in 1999 to certify interoperability of wireless Local Area Network (LAN) products based on IEEE 802.11 specification. Currently Wi-Fi Alliance has over 300 member companies from around the world, and over 6,000 product certifications have been completed since certification began in March of 2000.

What is the Wi-Fi Alliance Mission?
Wi-Fi Alliance's mission is to certify interoperability of products and services based on IEEE 802.11 technology; grow the global market for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ products and services across all market segments, platforms and applications; and influence and help define the strategic development of technologies, standards, services and applications.

How did the Wi-Fi Alliance come to exist?
In August 1999, Wi-Fi Alliance founding members Cisco, Conexant, Agere, Nokia and Symbol united to drive the adoption of one globally accepted standard for high-speed, wireless, local area networking: the IEEE 802.11 standard. Membership has grown to more than 300 members since Wi-Fi Alliance's inception.

What does it mean for a product to be Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™?
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ is the global seal of interoperability for IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN products. It is only granted to IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN products that have successfully completed stringent interoperability testing. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ product interoperability has laid the foundation for rapid adoption of Wi-Fi products in homes, offices and hotspots. Through comprehensive product testing, the Wi-Fi Alliance certification program assures that products from different manufacturers work with each other. Wi-Fi certification leads to a greatly improved end-user experience, higher customer satisfaction, lower product returns, reduced enterprise management costs, and the assurance of global interoperability at Wi-Fi ZONEs.

How and where are products certified?
Wi-Fi Alliance has instituted a test suite that defines how member products are tested to certify that they are interoperable with other Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ products. The Wi-Fi Alliance has 13 independent test labs in North America, Europe, Taiwan, Japan, Spain, Korea, Germany, China and India conduct the testing. When a product successfully passes the test, the company will be granted the Wi-Fi seal of interoperability and may display the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ logo on that product and its corresponding collateral material. Products awarded the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ logo have undergone strict, rigorous testing at an independent testing laboratory. Only individual products, and not entire product families, receive certification.

What is the Wi-Fi ZONE?
The Wi-Fi ZONE program allows travelers to easily identify locations that offer Wi-Fi services allowing them to stay connected while away from home or the office. This program is free to both provider and users. The ZONE Finder and provider sign up can be found at http://wi-fi.jiwire.com/.

Who can become a member of the Wi-Fi Alliance?
Membership in Wi-Fi Alliance is open to all companies who support the Wi-Fi standard, including any member manufacturer that would like to submit its Wi-Fi-based product for interoperability testing. Annual membership dues are US $15,000.