Rodent Regatta

”You mean, like, my cell phone,” she said. She had heard me say ”wireless network.” Technologists and marketers of the next generations of technology have got to overcome the jargon and terminology barriers that are being erected in people’s minds.

Wireless networking in the office or in the home is referred to as Wi-Fi or 802.11a or b or g, etc. Wi-Fi and 802.11 refer to the same technology – i.e. a way to move information on a network without having wires running to the computers.

This is completely different technology from cellular telephone technology. The fact of the matter is that Wi-Fi might one day replace today’s cellular networks with something that provides far more features that are more versatile and more closely match the ways that people want to work with a laptop computer or a PDA (personal digital assistant) or a personal communicator (cell phone).

Most people I talk to use 802.11 in all its flavors (a, b, g, etc.) interchangeably with the term Wi-Fi. Here’s an article that tries to draw a distinction based upon pending certification by one the industry’s standards boards. To me this is splitting hairs.

Here’s another article that provides some ways that Wi-Fi might impact home users of the technology.