Week 3 - Clear

This week the topic was "The Internet and World Wide Web". It is a very interesting and highly important topic to be informed about, I think. Especially for our generation of technology savvy individuals a world without the Internet is unimaginable. A concept that was especially interesting to me was about "Wi-Fi".

I use a Wi-Fi connection of my MacBook and Ipod touch everyday. As was stated in the book, it is widely known as being the "short version" of "wireless-fidelity", but as Dr. Means in the lecture already mentioned, this is not correct. I wanted to know where this name "Wi-Fi" really comes from and thus visited the homepage http://wi-fi.org in order to find that out. Unfortunately, on this website I was not able to find any information regarding the or

iginal of the Wi-Fi name. Thus, I searched Wikipedia, the to me best known wiki on the Internet, and found the reason why I could not find any explanation on the creation of this name:

This name was simply not intended to mean anything.

It was a plain "play on words" of "Hi-Fi", which later on got to be interpreted as being a short name for "wireless fidelity".

However, after clarifying the non-existent explanation of this brand name :), I would

like to dig a bit deeper in what this mysterious technology is all about that magically provides us with information regardless where in the world we are provided that we have a Wi-Fi compatible device available and we are somewhere where this sign appears:

Wi-Fi is actually a brand owned by the "Wi-Fi Alliance" that includes more than 300 companies, amongst which are Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and Nokia. It was founded in 1999 as a "global non-profit organization" with the aim to develop a "single global standard for high speed wireless local area networking (WLAN)". The devices, which are able to access this WLAN, are based on IEEE 802.11 standards. These standards express that these WLAN products use the 2.4, 3.6, and 5 GHz frequency bands (also known as radio waves) to communicate.

A device of any company can be "Wi-Fi certified", meaning that they can acquire a Wi-Fi logo to show customers that their products conform to the IEEE 802.11 standards. Hence, one can access the Internet with these devices, connect to other devices, or even to other networks which use Ethernet technology anywhere, where such a Wi-Fi Hotspot is. This presents a very important positive aspect of the Wi-Fi Technology, namely its interoperability. This means that you can use Wi-Fi with any device from any company and you do not get locked into one specific brand.

I hope, that you found this little excursion to what Wi-Fi actually is, was intended for and how it makes the connection of our phones, laptops, and so on possible, as interesting as I did.