What is Podcasting?

PODCASTING

Podcasts are digital media files (most often audio, but they can be video as well), which are produced in a series. You can subscribe to a series of files, or podcast, by using a piece of software called a podcatcher. Once you subscribe, your podcatcher periodically checks to see if any new files have been published, and if so, automatically downloads them onto your computer or portable music player for you to listen to or watch, whenever you wish.

Podcasting attracts people who want the ability to choose their own content (much like using the Internet), instead of the TV and radio model of broadcast where you tune in and select from one of the programs playing. It shares common ground with other time shifting technologies like TIVO, which allow you to download programs and watch whenever you want. Many people like the convenience of always having fresh material loaded on their iPods or personal music players, and listen to their podcasts throughout the day.

Many consider podcasting an alternative to commercial radio and TV, because the low cost of producing a podcast allows more voices and viewpoints to be heard. Also, unlike TV and radio, which produce programs for mass consumption, podcasts are “narrowcasts,” where only those interested in a certain topic seek out programs and sign up to listen. There are thousands of podcasts which target very specific niche interests, producing communities around topics which are too obscure for traditional broadcasting to cover.

Podcasting is an easy and powerful way to communicate your ideas and messages. You can potentially reach anyone with a broadband connection who is searching for podcasts and subscribes to your show. People who start podcasts usually want to deliver their content in a series, stretched out over a period of time. There are minimal equipment and start up costs if you already own a computer, and so this allows anyone who ever dreamed of owning a radio station (and some who didn't) the chance to transmit their ideas far beyond the reach of a radio transmitter.

Podcasters often start shows with the intention of building online communities, and often solicit comments and feedback on their programs. People use web blogs, groups, and forums to communicate with other listeners and the show's producers. Businesses are beginning to realize that podcasting is a cheap way to advertise to groups with very specific interests. Many large companies are starting to produce podcasts, both to communicate with their customers, and also with their own employees.

Source: Bertucci, Brian (2012) “What is Podcasting?”, About.com, Available at: http://podcasting.about.com/od/basics101/a/whatis.htm, Accessed: September 2, 2012

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM OVERVIEW

Customer relationship management (CRM) has been adopted by many organisations in recent years because of their effort to become more customer focused to face the increasing competition. Many companies highlighted that they have applied CRM methods and experienced success. CRM evolves from business processes such as relationship marketing and the increased emphasis on improved customer retention through the effective management of customer relationships.

One view of CRM is the utilisation of customer-related information or knowledge to deliver relevant products or services to customers.  Another view of CRM is that it is technologically orientated. Advances in database technologies such as data warehousing and data mining are crucial to the functionality and effectiveness of CRM systems.  A study conducted in a UK-based manufacturing company demonstrates that in reality CRM is a complex combination of business and technological factors.  In addition, CRM is considered a holistic process of acquiring, retaining and growing customers.  Thus, CRM is not simply some applications or software but the philosophy, the way a company works so as to build long-lasting relationships with its customers.  CRM is a comprehensive strategy and the process of acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company and the customer.

BENEFITS OF CRM

CRM permits businesses to leverage information from their databases to achieve customer retention and to cross-sell new products and services to existing customers.  Companies that implement CRM make better relationships with their customers, achieve loyal customers and a substantial payback, increased revenue and reduced cost.  CRM when successfully deployed can have a dramatic effect on bottom-line performance.

According to a study conducted in the sector of banking, convenience of location, price, recommendations from others and advertising are not important selection criteria for banks. From customers’ point of view, important criteria are: account and transaction accuracy and carefulness, efficiency in correcting mistakes and friendliness and helpfulness of personnel.  Thus, CRM, high-quality attributes of the product / service and differentiation proved to be the most important factors for customers.

Another study conducted in a European bank shows that with CRM, the bank was able to focus on profitable clients through efficient segmentation according to individual behaviour. Information about ‘who buys what and how much’ enabled the bank to have a commercial approach based on the client and not solely on the product. Thus, the bank was able to better satisfy and retain its customers.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE FACTORS OF CRM IMPLEMENTATION

CRM should be placed at the heart of the organisation and a holistic approach should be adopted because CRM reaches into many parts of the business.  Thus, CRM should be beyond a front-office contact management system.

Another issue is that of sourcing, since many organisations have few alternatives but to outsource a significant proportion of their CRM solution as they lack the resources to develop CRM software.  Managers have a basic understanding of CRM and the IT department has little time to research CRM or to develop software solutions. Thus, in many cases, external consultants should be used to acquire knowledge of CRM. In addition, best-practice examples, that is, the practical guidelines on how to design and implement CRM successfully are few within an industry.

In CRM implementation, a vision or strategic direction for the project is highly important because else the project may fail.  Furthermore, CRM involves business process change to align with the system.  Another major problem is the selection of the appropriate project team.  The integration of CRM systems is also essential, as well as the selection of a suitable CRM software package, which is able to integrate with many other enterprise applications.  Customers should not have to deal with the complexity of the companies and CRM should make things easier for them.

Other success factors of CRM are: Process fit, that is, the CRM system must be designed around an elaborate understanding of a CRM process so as to leverage the marketing and sales effort. Customer information quality, that is, making effective use of customer information resources. System support, because only if the system has been implemented and adopted successfully, a firm is able to reap its benefits.  Another important factor is culture, because employees should accept the changes and be prepared for what the implementation of CRM will bring.

Source: Blery, Evangelia and Michalakopoulos, Michalis (2006) “Customer relationship management: A case study of a Greek bank”, Journal of Financial Services Marketing, 11 (2), pp. 116-124

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL

Davis et al. (1989) originally formulated the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in an attempt to understand why people accept or reject information systems. Davis (1986) adapted Fishbein and Ajzen's (1980) Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to intentions to accept the information technology. The original TAM explained the causal links between beliefs (usefulness of an IS and ease of using the IS) and users' attitudes, intentions and “actual computer adoption behaviour”.  The purpose of the TAM was to explain and predict user acceptance of IS from measures taken after a brief period of interaction with the system.  Figure 1 shows the original TAM model. 

Figure 1: Original TAM Model 

A person's acceptance of an IS is hypothesized to be determined by his or her intention to accept it. The intention, in turn, is determined by the person's attitude toward the IS and his/her perceptions concerning its usefulness. Attitudes are formed from beliefs a person holds about the IS. The beliefs in the TAM consist of the targeted IS user's perceptions of its usefulness and its ease of use. External variables, such as the task, user characteristics, political influences, organizational factors, and the development process, are expected to influence technology acceptance behavior indirectly by affecting beliefs, attitudes, or intentions. The TAM intended to resolve the previous mixed and inconclusive research findings associating various beliefs and attitudes with IS acceptance. It had the potential to integrate various development, implementation, and usage research streams in IS.

Davis et al. (1989) empirically tested the original TAM and found that the data partially supported the model. In a post hoc data analysis combining the TRA and TAM, Davis et al. (1989) suggested a revision of the original TAM which they claimed was a “powerful [model] for predicting and explaining user behaviour based on only three theoretical constructs: intention, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use”.  The revised TAM proposed by Davis et al. (1989) is presented in figure 2.

Figure 2: Revised TAM Model 

The model has two versions: one concerning pre-implementation beliefs about usefulness and ease of use and the other involving post-implementation beliefs about usefulness and ease of use. The other notable difference between the original and revised TAM models is the lack of the attitude construct.  In addition to empirical findings (Davis et al. 1989, Adams et al. 1992) that support the notion of different models for pre- and post-implementation beliefs and acceptance, it is expected that beliefs or attitudes differ or change with experience.  The pre-implementation version of the TAM predicts the acceptance of technology with perceptions of usefulness and ease of use of the technology measured before its actual implementation. The post-implementation model uses perceptions of ease of use and usefulness as determinants of technology acceptance after implementation of the technology.

After a brief interactive introduction to an IS (the pre-implementation version), both the usefulness and ease of use beliefs are depicted as having a direct effect on intentions concerning the technology. In other words, an individual would rely on both their perceptions of usefulness and ease of use to form their intentions. These intentions then predict acceptance behaviour. After a period of actually using the IS (the post-implementation version), the ease of use belief is depicted as having an indirect effect on intentions.  The implication is that once individuals have been using an IS, their subsequent intentions are formed from their perceptions of its usefulness. Intentions then are expected to predict future technology acceptance behaviour.

Source: Szajna, Bernadette (1996), "Empirical Evaluation of the Revised Technology Acceptance Model", Management Science, 42 (1), pp. 85-92

Word-of-Mouth and Social Networking

WORD-OF-MOUTH AND THE SOCIAL NETWORKING

The technology for managing customer relationships has gotten fairly sophisticated. Companies can draw on databases that tell them how much each customer has purchased and how often, which they may supplement with detailed demographic profiles. By applying statistical models, they can predict not only when each customer is likely to make a future purchase but also what he or she will buy and through which channel. Managers can use these data to estimate a potential lifetime value for every customer and to determine whether, when, and how to contact each one to maximize the chances of realizing (and even increasing) his or her value.

Company that wanted to know a customer’s full value would include a measure of that person’s ability to bring in profitable new customers. But the nearest that most firms get to estimating the value of a customer’s referral power is some gauge of the individual’s willingness to make referrals (Kumar, Petersen, and Leon, 2007) .

Word of mouth (WOM) is the process of conveying information from person to person and plays a major role in customer buying decisions (Richins & Root-Shaffer, 1988).  In commercial situations, WOM involves consumers sharing attitudes, opinions, or reactions about businesses, products, or services with other people. WOM marketing is influential, multifaceted, and typically hard to influence (Dellarocas, 2003; Ha, 2006; Helps et al., 2004). Positive WOM is considered a powerful marketing medium for companies to influence consumers.WOM communication functions based on social networking and trust: people rely on families, friends, and others in their social network. Research also indicates that people appear to trust seemingly disinterested opinions from people outside their immediate social network, such as online reviews (Duana, Gub & Whinston, 2008). This form is known as online WOM (OWOM) or electronic WOM (eWOM).

Recently online social networking sites like Facebook.com and Twitter.com have emerged as a popular way of discovering information on the World Wide Web. In contrast to traditional methods of content discovery such as browsing or searching, content sharing in social networking sites occurs through word-of-mouth, where content spreads via conversations between users. For instance, users share links to content on the web with personal recommendations like “This is a must-see video”.

While such WOM based content discovery existed long before in the form of emails and web forums, online social networks (OSNs) have made this phenomenon extremely popular and globally reaching (Rodrigues et al., 2011). In fact, today social networking sites are known to be a major driver of traffic to many web sites (Campbell, 2009).  Facebook and Twitter drive, respectively, 44% and 29% of the traffic (Schonfeld, 2010).  These OSNs are sharing tens of millions of web links every day, and we expect that the amount of information exchanged by word-of-mouth in OSNs will grow over time (Rao, 2010).

REFERENCES:

Campbell A. (2009), Social Activity Becomes Significant Source of Website Trac, Small Business Trends, http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/03/social-activity-signicant-source-website-trac.html.

Dellarocas, C. (2003). “The digitization of word-of-mouth: Promise and challenges of online reputation systems”, Management Science, 49 (10), pp. 1407–1424.

Duana,W., Gub, B., &Whinston, A.B. (2008). “Do online reviews matter?— An empirical investigation of panel data”, Decision Support Systems, 45 (3), pp. 1007–1016.

Ha, H.-Y. (2006). “The effects of consumer risk perception on pre-purchase information in online auctions: Brand, word-of-mouth, and customized information”, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 8, (2).

Helps, J.E., Lewis, R., Mobilio, L., Perry, D., & Raman, N. (2004). “Viral marketing or electronic word-of-mouth advertising: Examining consumer responses and motivations to pass along email”, Journal of Advertising Research, 44 (2), pp. 333–348.

Kumar, V.; Petersen, Andrew J. and Leon, Robert P. (2007), “How Valuable Is Word of Mouth?”, Tool Kit, Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-9

Rao, L (2010), Twitter Seeing 90 Million Tweets Per Day, 25 Percent Contain Links, TechCrunch, http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/twitter-seeing-90-million-tweets-per-day/.

Richins, M.L., & Root-Shaffer, T. (1988). “The role of involvement and opinion leadership in consumer word-of-mouth: An implicit model made explicit”, Advances in Consumer Research, 15, pp. 32–36.

Rodrigues, Tiago; Benevenuto, Fabrício; Cha, Meeyoung; Gummadi, Krishna P. and Almeida, Virgílio (2011), “On Word-of-Mouth Based Discovery of the Web”, IMC 11, November 2-4, 2011, Berlin, Germany.

Schonfeld, E. (2010), Facebook Drives 44 Percent of Social Sharing On The Web, TechCrunch, http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/16/facebook-44-percent-social-sharing/.

Wi-Fi, Building a Wi-Fi network

Building a Wireless Network

If you already have several computers networked in your home, you can create a wireless network with a wireless access point. If you have several computers that are not networked, or if you want to replace your Ethernet network, you'll need a wireless router. This is a single unit that contains:

1. A port to connect to your cable or DSL modem
2. A router
3. An Ethernet hub
4. A firewall
5. A wireless access point

A wireless router allows you to use wireless signals or Ethernet cables to connect your computers to one another, to a printer and to the Internet. Most routers provide coverage for about 100 feet (30.5 meters) in all directions, although walls and doors can block the signal. If your home is very large, you can buy inexpensive range extenders or repeaters to increase your router's range.

As with wireless adapters, many routers can use more than one 802.11 standard. 802.11b routers are slightly less expensive, but because the standard is older, they're slower than 802.11a, 802.11g and 802.11n routers. Most people select the 802.11g option for its speed and reliability.

Once you plug in your router, it should start working at its default settings. Most routers let you use a Web interface to change your settings. You can select:

• The name of the network, known as its service set identifier (SSID) -- The default setting is usually the manufacturer's name.
• The channel that the router uses -- Most routers use channel 6 by default. If you live in an apartment and your neighbors are also using channel 6, you may experience interference. Switching to a different channel should eliminate the problem.
• Your router's security options -- Many routers use a standard, publicly available sign-on, so it's a good idea to set your own username and password.

Security is an important part of a home wireless network, as well as public WiFi hotspots. If you set your router to create an open hotspot, anyone who has a wireless card will be able to use your signal. Most people would rather keep strangers out of their network, though. Doing so requires you to take a few security precautions.

It's also important to make sure your security precautions are current. The Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) security measure was once the standard for WAN security. The idea behind WEP was to create a wireless security platform that would make any wireless network as secure as a traditional wired network. But hackers discovered vulnerabilities in the WEP approach, and today it's easy to find applications and programs that can compromise a WAN running WEP security.

To keep your network private, you can use one of the following methods:

WiFi Protected Access (WPA) is a step up from WEP and is now part of the 802.11i wireless network security protocol. It uses temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP) encryption. As with WEP, WPA security involves signing on with a password. Most public hotspots are either open or use WPA or 128-bit WEP technology, though some still use the vulnerable WEP approach.

Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering is a little different from WEP or WPA. It doesn't use a password to authenticate users -- it uses a computer's physical hardware. Each computer has its own unique MAC address. MAC address filtering allows only machines with specific MAC addresses to access the network. You must specify which addresses are allowed when you set up your router. This method is very secure, but if you buy a new computer or if visitors to your home want to use your network, you'll need to add the new machines' MAC addresses to the list of approved addresses. The system isn't foolproof. A clever hacker can spoof a MAC address -- that is, copy a known MAC address to fool the network that the computer he or she is using belongs on the network.

Source: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wireless-network3.htm

Wi-Fi Hotspots

WiFi Hotspots

If you want to take advantage of public WiFi hotspots or start a wireless network in your home, the first thing you'll need to do is make sure your computer has the right gear. Most new laptops and many new desktop computers come with built-in wireless transmitters. If your laptop doesn't, you can buy a wireless adapter that plugs into the PC card slot or USB port. Desktop computers can use USB adapters, or you can buy an adapter that plugs into the PCI slot inside the computer's case. Many of these adapters can use more than one 802.11 standard.

Once you've installed your wireless adapter and the drivers that allow it to operate, your computer should be able to automatically discover existing networks. This means that when you turn your computer on in a WiFi hotspot, the computer will inform you that the network exists and ask whether you want to connect to it. If you have an older computer, you may need to use a software program to detect and connect to a wireless network.

Being able to connect to the Internet in public hotspots is extremely convenient. Wireless home networks are convenient as well. They allow you to easily connect multiple computers and to move them from place to place without disconnecting and reconnecting wires. In the next section, we'll look at how to create a wireless network in your home.

Building a Wireless Network

If you already have several computers networked in your home, you can create a wireless network with a wireless access point. If you have several computers that are not networked, or if you want to replace your Ethernet network, you'll need a wireless router. This is a single unit that contains:

1.     A port to connect to your cable or DSL modem
2.     A router
3.     An Ethernet hub
4.     A firewall
5.     A wireless access point

A wireless router allows you to use wireless signals or Ethernet cables to connect your computers to one another, to a printer and to the Internet. Most routers provide coverage for about 100 feet (30.5 meters) in all directions, although walls and doors can block the signal. If your home is very large, you can buy inexpensive range extenders or repeaters to increase your router's range.

As with wireless adapters, many routers can use more than one 802.11 standard. 802.11b routers are slightly less expensive, but because the standard is older, they're slower than 802.11a, 802.11g and 802.11n routers. Most people select the 802.11g option for its speed and reliability.

Once you plug in your router, it should start working at its default settings. Most routers let you use a Web interface to change your settings. You can select:

• The name of the network, known as its service set identifier (SSID) -- The default setting is usually the manufacturer's name.
• The channel that the router uses -- Most routers use channel 6 by default. If you live in an apartment and your neighbors are also using channel 6, you may experience interference. Switching to a different channel should eliminate the problem.
• Your router's security options -- Many routers use a standard, publicly available sign-on, so it's a good idea to set your own username and password.

Security is an important part of a home wireless network, as well as public WiFi hotspots. If you set your router to create an open hotspot, anyone who has a wireless card will be able to use your signal. Most people would rather keep strangers out of their network, though. Doing so requires you to take a few security precautions.

It's also important to make sure your security precautions are current. The Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) security measure was once the standard for WAN security. The idea behind WEP was to create a wireless security platform that would make any wireless network as secure as a traditional wired network. But hackers discovered vulnerabilities in the WEP approach, and today it's easy to find applications and programs that can compromise a WAN running WEP security.

To keep your network private, you can use one of the following methods:

WiFi Protected Access (WPA) is a step up from WEP and is now part of the 802.11i wireless network security protocol. It uses temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP) encryption. As with WEP, WPA security involves signing on with a password. Most public hotspots are either open or use WPA or 128-bit WEP technology, though some still use the vulnerable WEP approach.

Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering is a little different from WEP or WPA. It doesn't use a password to authenticate users -- it uses a computer's physical hardware. Each computer has its own unique MAC address. MAC address filtering allows only machines with specific MAC addresses to access the network. You must specify which addresses are allowed when you set up your router. This method is very secure, but if you buy a new computer or if visitors to your home want to use your network, you'll need to add the new machines' MAC addresses to the list of approved addresses. The system isn't foolproof. A clever hacker can spoof a MAC address -- that is, copy a known MAC address to fool the network that the computer he or she is using belongs on the network.

Wireless networks are easy and inexpensive to set up, and most routers' Web interfaces are virtually self-explanatory.

Wi-Fi Overview

Overview 

If you've been in an airport, coffee shop, library or hotel recently, chances are you've been right in the middle of a wireless network. Many people also use wireless networking, also called WiFi or 802.11 networking, to connect their computers at home, and some cities are trying to use the technology to provide free or low-cost Internet access to residents. In the near future, wireless networking may become so widespread that you can access the Internet just about anywhere at any time, without using wires.

WiFi has a lot of advantages. Wireless networks are easy to set up and inexpensive. They're also unobtrusive -- unless you're on the lookout for a place to use your laptop, you may not even notice when you're in a hotspot. In this article, we'll look at the technology that allows information to travel over the air. We'll also review what it takes to create a wireless network in your home.

What is Wi-Fi?

A wireless network uses radio waves, just like cell phones, televisions and radios do. In fact, communication across a wireless network is a lot like two-way radio communication. Here's what happens:

1. A computer's wireless adapter translates data into a radio signal and transmits it using an antenna.
2. A wireless router receives the signal and decodes it. The router sends the information to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection.

The process also works in reverse, with the router receiving information from the Internet, translating it into a radio signal and sending it to the computer's wireless adapter.

The radios used for WiFi communication are very similar to the radios used for walkie-talkies, cell phones and other devices. They can transmit and receive radio waves, and they can convert 1s and 0s into radio waves and convert the radio waves back into 1s and 0s. But WiFi radios have a few notable differences from other radios:

• They transmit at frequencies of 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz. This frequency is considerably higher than the frequencies used for cell phones, walkie-talkies and televisions. The higher frequency allows the signal to carry more data.

• They use 802.11 networking standards, which come in several flavors: 802.11a transmits at 5 GHz and can move up to 54 megabits of data per second. It also uses orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), a more efficient coding technique that splits that radio signal into several sub-signals before they reach a receiver. This greatly reduces interference. 802.11b is the slowest and least expensive standard. For a while, its cost made it popular, but now it's becoming less common as faster standards become less expensive. 802.11b transmits in the 2.4 GHz frequency band of the radio spectrum. It can handle up to 11 megabits of data per second, and it uses complementary code keying (CCK) modulation to improve speeds. 802.11g transmits at 2.4 GHz like 802.11b, but it's a lot faster -- it can handle up to 54 megabits of data per second. 802.11g is faster because it uses the same OFDM coding as 802.11a. 802.11n is the newest standard that is widely available. This standard significantly improves speed and range. For instance, although 802.11g theoretically moves 54 megabits of data per second, it only achieves real-world speeds of about 24 megabits of data per second because of network congestion. 802.11n, however, reportedly can achieve speeds as high as 140 megabits per second. The standard is currently in draft form -- the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) plans to formally ratify 802.11n by the end of 2009.

Other 802.11 standards focus on specific applications of wireless networks, like wide area networks (WANs) inside vehicles or technology that lets you move from one wireless network to another seamlessly.

WiFi radios can transmit on any of three frequency bands. Or, they can "frequency hop" rapidly between the different bands. Frequency hopping helps reduce interference and lets multiple devices use the same wireless connection simultaneously.

As long as they all have wireless adapters, several devices can use one router to connect to the Internet. This connection is convenient, virtually invisible and fairly reliable; however, if the router fails or if too many people try to use high-bandwidth applications at the same time, users can experience interference or lose their connections.

(Source: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wireless-network.htm)

The name of a popular wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to provide wireless high-speed Internet and network connections. The Wi-Fi Alliance, the organization that owns the Wi-Fi (registered trademark) term specifically defines Wi-Fi as any wireless local area network (WLAN) products that are based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) 802.11 standards.

Initially, Wi-Fi was used in place of only the 2.4GHz 802.11b standard, however the Wi-Fi Alliance has expanded the generic use of the Wi-Fi term to include any type of network or WLAN product based on any of the 802.11 standards, including 802.11b, 802.11a, dual-band, and so on, in an attempt to stop confusion about wireless LAN interoperability.

Wi-Fi works with no physical wired connection between sender and receiver by using radio frequency (RF) technology, a frequency within the electromagnetic spectrum associated with radio wave propagation. When an RF current is supplied to an antenna, an electromagnetic field is created that then is able to propagate through space. The cornerstone of any wireless network is an access point (AP). The primary job of an access point is to broadcast a wireless signal that computers can detect and "tune" into. In order to connect to an access point and join a wireless network, computers and devices must be equipped with wireless network adapters. 

Wi-Fi  is supported by many applications and devices including video game consoles, home networks, PDAs, mobile phones, major operating systems, and other types of consumer electronics.  Any products that are tested and approved as "Wi-Fi Certified" (a registered trademark) by the Wi-Fi Alliance are certified as interoperable with each other, even if they are from different manufacturers. For example, a user with a Wi-Fi Certified product can use any brand of access point with any other brand of client hardware that also is also "Wi-Fi Certified". Products that pass this certification are required to carry an identifying seal on their packaging that states "Wi-Fi Certified" and indicates the radio frequency band used (2.5GHz for 802.11b, 802.11g, or 802.11n, and 5GHz for 802.11a).

A common misconception is that the term Wi-Fi is short for "wireless fidelity," however this is not the case. Wi-Fi is simply a trademarked term meaning IEEE 802.11x.

(Source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Wi_Fi.html)

Wi-Fi Demand

Demand for wireless LAN hardware has experienced phenomenal growth during the past several years, evolving quickly from novelty into necessity. Wi-Fi technology is most commonly found in notebook computers and Internet access devices such as routers and DSL or cable modems. The growing pervasiveness of Wi-Fi is helping to extend the technology beyond the PC and into consumer electronics applications like Internet telephony, music streaming, gaming, and even photo viewing and in-home video transmission.

These new uses, as well as the growing number of conventional WLAN users, increasingly combine to strain existing Wi-Fi networks. Fortunately, a solution is close at hand. The industry has come to an agreement on the components that will make up 802.11n, a new WLAN standard that promises both higher data rates and increased reliability.

A wireless LAN (WiFi) is a data transmission system designed to provide location-independent network access between computing devices by using radio waves rather than a cable infrastructure. Wi-Fi is meant to be used generically when referring to any type of 802.11 network, whether 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g etc. The first 802.11b networks could move data at up to 11 megabits per second (Mbps).  Then came products using 802.11a, followed shortly thereafter by 802.11g, each with maximum speeds of 54Mbps and throughput of around 25Mbps. WLAN hardware built around 802.11g was quickly embraced by consumers and businesses seeking higher bandwidth.  The next Wi-Fi speed standard, 802.11n, will likely offer a bandwidth of around 108Mbps.  And because it will be an industry standard, n-compliant devices will be interoperable.

Source: Sidhu, Bhavneet, Singh, Hardeep, and Chhabra, Amit (2007) “Emerging Wireless Standards - WiFi, ZigBee and WiMAX”, World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 25, 2007