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2.2 WECA
A few years ago several WLAN standards and proprietary implementations were competing
at the same marketplace. WLAN networking components from one vendor would only work
with WLAN terminal equipment from the same manufacturer. In other words, customers
could not go and purchase a wireless access point (a wireless network hub) from one vendor
and use a wireless network adapter from another vendor in the same installation. This was
widely recognized as being the main limiting factor preventing wide scale market acceptance
of the WLAN technology. The situation effectively limited the WLAN usage to a certain niche
market segments where multi-vendor capability was not of primary concern.
In 1999, Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) was formed to tackle the
interoperability problem by supporting the recently approved IEEE 802.11b standard and by
testing and certifying WLAN multi-vendor interoperability. The founding members of the
group include 3Com, Aironet (now part of Cisco systems), Intersil (formerly Harris
Semiconductors), Lucent Technologies (now Agere systems), Nokia, and Symbol
Technology. It is notable that today WECA has approximately 140 member companies.
In addition to certifying the interoperability of Wi-Fi™ (IEEE 802.11) products, WECA's
mission includes the promotion of Wi-Fi™ as the global wireless LAN standard across all
market segments.
Today, it is clear that the improved compatibility between different manufacturers' WLAN
devices together with marketing activities have significantly fostered the overall WLAN
market growth, which in turn has lead to lower device costs to end users, thus further
increasing the potential market size.
2.2.1 Testing Process
WECA's interoperability certification process can be divided into two main parts:
1)
Definition of the test specifications and
2)
Testing of the products from various manufacturers against the test
specifications to make sure that products conform to the Wi-Fi™ standard
Agilent Technologies Interoperability Certification Lab (Agilent ICL) (former Silicon Valley
Networking Labs) performs the WECA testing. Agilent's ICL is operating as an independent
test facility. However, only WECA members can submit products to the lab for Wi-Fi™
interoperability testing.
When a product meets the interoperability requirements as described in the WECA test
matrix, Agilent's ICL notifies WECA. WECA then grants a certification of interoperability,
which allows the vendor to use the Wi-Fi logo on advertising and packaging for the certified
product. The Wi-Fi logo is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Wi-Fi™ logo.
The idea is that the Wi-Fi seal of approval assures the end customer of the interoperability
with other network cards and access points which also bear the Wi-Fi logo.
The Nokia D211 is Wi-Fi compliant.
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