Standarisation regime

“If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow; you get somewhere.” - Henry Ford

Since the Wi-Fi Alliance started certifying their product almost 15 years ago, it has become a huge success creating de facto standards in wireless connectivity. Their products already penetrated 25% of homes around the world and since then they have certified more than 18.000 products and sold many millions of devices with their certification. To continue their success it needs to evolve and seek out the next step into their 'seamless connectivity'. With Wi-Fi Direct they hope to gain a share into peer-to-peer networks and expand their domain to short distance setups requiring high bandwidths.

As a company, to be allowed to incorporate Wi-Fi into your manufactured products, one needs to be a Wi-Fi Alliance member. The alliance differentiates two types of memberships: Regular and Adopter. As an regular member you have to pay $15.000 annually, but will gain the full spectrum of benefits. The most important are the ability to certify Wi-Fi products, access working documents, visit annual member meetings, participate in task groups, allowed to vote and access pre-certified technical insight. It means you get to influence the whole process and are the first to be able to implement the knowledge.

The other option is to be an Adopter which cost only $5.000 per year. Your options are limited though as you are not allowed to have any influence in the process of standardisation. Visits to the annual meetings are allowed as are the access to all finished documentation. Also, us of the Wi-Fi Alliance Member logo is allowed but you may not certify product. This way you will get all the benefits finished Wi-Fi standards can provide, but are not able to influence in this process.