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| current Wi-Fi Alliance logo |
The Wi-Fi Alliance has its origins in IEEE's committee for wireless standardization. The famous family of standards called IEEE 802.11 consist of a set of media access control and physical layer specification for the implementation in wireless communication.
Their early product suffered from interoperability problems between products from different brands due to a lack of testing equipment. From this need to have a reliable, secure and compatible wireless standard, the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) was formed in 1999 by several companies. They branded the 802.11b technology with the name Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) and provides extensive interoperability testing before products were granted the Wi-Fi certified logo.
The WECA renamed itself to its current name in 2002 and has about 600 members who can take part in the organization and take advantage of the researched technologies. It is a global non-profit industry associations consisting of their members who share the same vision of 'seamless connectivity'.
Its main product is the Wi-Fi certified logo which is a globally recognized seal of approval for Wi-Fi products. It signifies interoperability, security mechanism, backward compatibility and high quality performance. Examples of other word marks include WiGig, Miracast, WPA2 and Wi-Fi Direct.
