Wi-Fi Alliance
The Wi-Fi Alliance is a non-profit organization that owns the Wi-Fi trademark. Manufacturers may use the trademark to brand products certified for Wi-Fi interoperability. It is based in Austin, Texas.
History
Early 802.11 products suffered from interoperability problems because the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers had no provision for testing equipment for compliance with its standards.In 1999, pioneers of a new, higher-speed variant endorsed the IEEE 802.11b specification to form the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance and branded the new technology Wi-Fi.
The group of companies included 3Com, Aironet, Harris Semiconductor, Lucent Technologies, Nokia and Symbol Technologies.
The alliance lists Apple, Comcast, Samsung, Sony, LG, Intel, Dell, Broadcom, Cisco, Qualcomm, Motorola, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, and T-Mobile as key sponsors. The charter for this independent organization was to perform testing, certify interoperability of products, and to promote the technology.
WECA renamed itself the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2002.
Most producers of 802.11 equipment became members, and as of 2012 the Wi-Fi Alliance included over 550 member companies. The Wi-Fi Alliance extended Wi-Fi beyond wireless local area network applications into point-to-point and personal area networking and enabled specific applications such as Miracast.
Wi-Fi certification
The Wi-Fi Alliance owns and controls the "Wi-Fi Certified" logo, a registered trademark, which is permitted only on equipment which has passed testing. Purchasers relying on that trademark may have greater chances of interoperation than otherwise. Testing involves not only radio and data format interoperability, but security protocols, as well as optional testing for quality of service and power management protocols. Wi-Fi Certified products have to demonstrate that they can perform well in networks with other Wi-Fi Certified products, running common applications, in situations similar to those encountered in everyday use.Certification employs 3 principles:
- Interoperability is the primary target of certification. Rigorous test cases are used to ensure that products from different equipment vendors can interoperate in a wide variety of configurations.
- Backward compatibility has to be preserved to allow for new equipment to work with existing gear. Backward compatibility protects investments in legacy Wi-Fi products and enables users to gradually upgrade and expand their networks.
- New certification programs allow newer technology and specifications come into the marketplace. These certification programs may be mandatory or optional.
The Wi-Fi Alliance certification process includes three types of tests to ensure interoperability. Wi-Fi Certified products are tested for:
- Compatibility: certified equipment has been tested for connectivity with other certified equipment. Compatibility testing has always been, and still is, the predominant component of interoperability testing, and it is the element that most people associate with "interoperability". It involves tests with multiple devices from different equipment vendors.
- Conformance: the equipment conforms to specific critical elements of the IEEE 802.11 standard. Conformance testing usually involves standalone analysis of individual products and establishes whether the equipment responds to inputs as expected and specified. For example, conformance testing is used to ensure that Wi-Fi equipment protects itself and the network when the equipment detects evidence of network attacks.
- Performance: the equipment meets the performance levels required. Performance tests are not designed to measure and compare performance among products, but simply to verify that the product meets the minimum performance requirements. Specific performance tests results are not released by the Wi-Fi Alliance.
Certification types
The Wi-Fi Alliance provides certification testing in two levels:Mandatory:
- Core MAC/PHY interoperability over 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n.
- Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 security, which aligns with IEEE 802.11i. WPA2 is available in two types: WPA2-Personal for consumer use, and WPA2 Enterprise, which adds EAP authentication.
- Tests corresponding to IEEE 802.11h and 802.11d.
- WMM Quality of Service, based upon a subset of IEEE 802.11e.
- WMM Power Save, based upon APSD within IEEE 802.11e
- Wi-Fi Protected Setup, a specification developed by the Alliance to ease the process of setting up and enabling security protections on small office and consumer Wi-Fi networks.
- Application Specific Device, for wireless devices other than Access Point and Station which has specific application, such as DVD players, projectors, printers, etc.
- Converged Wireless Group–Radio Frequency, to provide performance mapping of Wi-Fi and cellular radios in converged devices.
- Passpoint/Hotspot 2.0
Certification programs
There are a number of certification programs by Wi-Fi alliance:2.4/5/6GHz Wi-Fi
The 802.11 protocols are IEEE standards, identified as 802.11b, 11g, 11n, 11ac, etc. In 2018 The Wi-Fi Alliance created the simpler generation labels Wi-Fi 4 - 6 beginning with Wi-Fi 5, retroactively added Wi-Fi 4 and later added Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E. Wi-Fi 5 had Wave 1 and Wave 2 phases. Wi-Fi 6E extends the 2.4/5 GHz range to 6 GHz, where licensed. Listed in historical and capacity order. See the individual 802.11 articles for version details or 802.11 for a composite summary.WiGig
WiGig refers to 60 GHz wireless local area network connection. It was initially announced in 2013 by Wireless Gigabit Alliance, and was adopted by the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2013. They started certifying in 2016. The first version of WiGig is IEEE 802.11ad, and a newer version IEEE 802.11ay was released in 2021.Wi-Fi Direct
In October 2010, the Alliance began to certify Wi-Fi Direct, that allows Wi-Fi-enabled devices to communicate directly with each other by setting up ad-hoc networks, without going through a wireless access point or hotspot. Since 2009 when it was first announced, some suggested Wi-Fi Direct might replace the need for Bluetooth on applications that do not rely on Bluetooth low energy.WPA
Wi-Fi Protected Access is a security mechanism based on IEEE 802.11i amendment to the standard that the Wi-Fi Alliance started to certify from the year of 2003.IBSS with Wi-Fi Protected Setup
IBSS with Wi-Fi Protected Setup would enable the creation of ad hoc network between devices directly without central access point.Wi-Fi Passpoint
Wi-Fi Passpoint, alternatively known as Hotspot 2.0, is a solution for enabling inter-carrier roaming. It utilizes IEEE 802.11u.Wi-Fi Easy Connect
Wi-Fi Easy Connect is a protocol that would enable easily establishing connections via QR code.Wi-Fi Protected Setup
Wi-Fi Protected Setup is a network security standard to simply create a secure wireless home network, created and introduced by Wi-Fi Alliance in 2006.Miracast
Miracast, introduced in 2012, is a standard for wireless display connections from devices such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones. Its goal is to replace cables connecting from the device to the display.Wi-Fi Aware
Wi-Fi Aware or Neighbor Awareness Networking is an interoperability certification program announced in January 2015 that enables device users, when in the range of a particular access point or another compatible device, to receive notifications of applications or services available in the proximity. Later versions of this standard included new features such as the capability to establish a peer-to-peer data connection for file transfer.Fears were voiced immediately in media that it would be predominantly used for proximity marketing.