How Much is Riding on Wi-Fi?

nexex writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's John Cook explores the current flood of money on wireless networking startups and if they could be heading towards another dotcom bubble. Interesting tidbits include, ;More than 60 Wi-Fi start-ups have raised more than $650 million in the past two years, according to VentureWire. Last quarter, there was more money invested into wireless technologies than networking and enterprise software.'" The article's got some good commentary on grassroots-founded tech trends vs. investment-backed tech trends, and tries to explain why wi-fi has caught on so well.

Comments

Wireless Fidelity

[sydb]

<rant>

This is the first time I've actually seen "Wi-Fi" associated with the term "Wireless Fidelity". I'd always assumed this was the origin of the term Wi-Fi, by comparison with the terms Hi-Fi and High Fidelity.

In the world of audio, High Fidelity means closely approaching the nature of the original sound source.

What the hell does Wireless Fidelity mean? Prevention of adultery through remote control? Some kind of 802.11b connected chastity belt?

Perhaps means closely approaching the nature of the Ethernet medium. If so, it's an outright lie. There is no similarity.

I don't like the term Wi-Fi. I encourage others not to use it. It's vague and stupid and I wish it didn't exist.

</rant>

Re:Wireless Fidelity

[Istealmymusic]

But 802.11b is 8 syllables, and Wi-Fi is only 2. That's a 75% savings.

We need another bust

[TheGrayArea]

Cause I just noticed that local used office equiment store is running low on inventory.