Wi-Fi CERTIFIED PRODUCTS ROCKET TO OVER 500 IN FOUR MONTHS

Wi-Fi Certification Attracts New Companies and Product Categories

Mountain View, CA, November 18, 2002 - The Wi-Fi Alliance announced today that 142 additional Wi-Fi products have received certification in the past four months. Since testing began in March of 2002, 509 Wi-Fi product certifications have been awarded to 98 Wi-Fi Alliance member companies. This four-month period saw the addition of 15 new companies seeking Wi-Fi certification for their products for a total of 98 companies offering Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products.

“Wi-Fi certifications continue to set an impressive pace with a forty percent increase over the prior period,” said WECA chairman Dennis Eaton. “During this period we have also seen a fifteen percent increase in the number of companies offering Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products. It is becoming increasingly clear that customers want a good user experience and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products help them get that. This is driving the companies to certify products,” continued Eaton.

“Looking at the numbers a little closer reveals some very interesting trends. First, two new categories of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products have emerged – Wi-Fi Cable modems and Wi-Fi DSL modems. We are also seeing the certification rate of mPCI cards (cards that go inside laptops and PDAs) increase and PC cards decline slightly. As more laptops are shipped with Wi-Fi built in, mPCI cards take over their share of the market. In addition, Wi-Fi Compact Flash card certifications are increasing as Wi-Fi is used in smaller devices,” Eaton added.

Products awarded the Wi-Fi logo have undergone strict, rigorous, and independent testing at one of four labs in Tokyo, Japan; San Jose, California; Winnersh, UK or Taipei, Taiwan. Testing usually takes two to four days per product to complete. The Wi-Fi interoperability certification program has become the international standard for providing high-quality interoperability testing for 802.11-based products.

See Wi-Fi at COMDEX

Wi-Fi wireless LANs will be on display at COMDEX (Booth 3160), November 18-22, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

About the Wi-Fi Alliance

The Wi-Fi Alliance is a nonprofit organization formed in 1999 to certify interoperability of Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 products and to promote them as the global, wireless LAN standard across all market segments.

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 an independent laboratory.

Membership in Wi-Fi Alliance is open to all companies that support the 802.11 family of standards. Wi-Fi Alliance now comprises over 190 members that offer over 500 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products from the world’s leading companies.

For more information, please visit www.wi-fi.org.