In the past few years, there have been three major movements in wireless networking.

One is speed – it’s now much faster; the second is availability – now much more equipment is available; the third is price – Wi-Fi equipment is now much cheaper.

A lot of the equipment has also become smaller and the software to drive it has become more user-friendly.

Before we go any further, let’s try to remove some of the confusion about the terms used for wireless networking.

Wi-Fi and 802.11

Wi-Fi in the home means no messy cables to run and (theoretically!) you can use your notebook computer wherever you want. As we explain, it's not always quite that easy - but worthwhile, nevertheless. (Photo courtesy of the Wi-Fi Alliance).

Wi-Fi, which is an abbreviation of Wireless Fidelity (itself a pretty meaningless term!), is actually a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, an organisation set up to ensure technical standards are maintainted.

Strictly speaking, Wi-Fi should only be applied to equipment whose manufacturer is a member of the alliance. But rightly or wrongly, like so many computer and technical terms, Wi-Fi has already entered our language as a generic name in its own right.

The Wi-Fi Alliance regulates the use of the Wi-Fi trademark, only allowing manufacturers whose equipment passes their rather stringent suite of tests (and who pay big $!) to be certified and use the name/bear the mark.