Austin, TX ,September 8, 2004 - The Wi-Fi Alliance today announced that it is now certifying a new capability that is expected to set the stage for rapid adoption of Wi-Fi networking in consumer electronic devices such as DVD players and televisions. This new capability, called WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia), is designed to improve the user experience for audio, video and voice applications over a Wi-Fi wireless connection.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has taken this step due to strong industry demand and pending availability of products offering multimedia applications. With this move, consumer electronic product manufactures can now plan to include Wi-Fi with WMM support in their product plans, backed by the assurance of certified interoperability from the Wi-Fi Alliance.
The demand for Wi-Fi CE product connectivity is expected to grow significantly and WMM will provide a strong foundation for that growth. In fact, we see this action jump starting the coming mainstream adoption of Wi-Fi in the consumer electronics market segment, said Wi-Fi Alliance Managing Director,Frank Hanzlik. The Alliance's WMM certification testing will help unleash a new category of wireless products that use the robust connectivity only offered by Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ interoperability. The demand for multimedia support in telephony and other consumer electronic products has skyrocketed in the recent months and is forecasted to grow at an unprecedented rate, Hanzlik added.
The following Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ products are the first to have obtained WMM certification:
Atheros Communications Inc.Atheros AR5002AP-2X Concurrent 802.11a and 802.11b/g Dual-band Access Point Atheros AR5002X Universal 802.11a/b/g Wireless Network Adapter
Broadcom Corporation Broadcom AirForce 802.11a/g CardBus Reference Design, BCM94309CB Broadcom AirForce 802.11a/g Access Point Reference Design, BCM94704-AGR
Cisco Systems Cisco Aironet 1200 Series Access Point with integrated 802.11a and 802.11g radios
Conexant Systems, Inc.ISL39200C WorldRadio
Instant802 Networks Gateway 7001 Access Point
Intel Intel Pro/Wireless 2915 Network Connection
Philips Philips 802.11 a/g WLAN Reference Design SA5250/1 mPCI
About the Wi-Fi Alliance
The Wi-Fi Alliance (formerly WECA) is the global Wi-Fi organization that created the Wi-Fi brand. A nonprofit organization, the Alliance was formed in 1999 to certify interoperability of IEEE 802.11 products and to promote them as the global, wireless LAN standard across all market segments.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has instituted a test suite that defines how member products are tested to certify that they are interoperable with other Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ products. These tests are conducted at independent laboratories.
Membership in the Wi-Fi Alliance is open to all companies that support the IEEE 802.11 family of standards. The Wi-Fi Alliance now comprises over 200 members from the worlds leading companies. These companies offer over 1,500 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ products. For more information, please visitwww.wi-fi.org.
Press and analyst contact:
C.Brian Grimm
Wave Communications for Wi-Fi Alliance 910.686.0870briang@wavecoms.com
