Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)

Wi-Fi is a wireless networking standard published by the IEEE. IEEE 802.11a allows devices to connect wirelessly at speeds of up to 54Mbps, but was not as widely adopted as other standards in the series due to the fact that it was not interoperable with 802.11b. 802.11b, which was initially the most successfully deployed protocol, supports speeds up to 11Mbps. 802.11g was the follow-on to that effort, offering access at speeds up to 54Mbps. IEEE 802.11b operates in the 2.4GHz radio band, while IEEE 802.11a operates in the 5GHz radio band. Following the work on 802.11g, work began on 802.11n, which provides data rates in excess of 300Mbps. 802.11n was finally approved in 2009 after 6 years from the date the first draft was published.

Standard Data Rates Frequency
802.11a 54 Mbps 5 GHz
802.11b 11 Mbps 2.4 GHz
802.11g 54 Mbps 2.4 GHz
802.11n 300+ Mbps 2.4 GHz

Wi-Fi stands for "Wireless Fidelity".

Resources: Wi-Fi Alliance

See Also: Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX)