By | No Comments
Last updated: Monday, January 11, 2010

For consumers concerned about wireless network congestion, hope may be at hand. That’s the message from a group of tech companies backing wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, a way to get online without having to go through a traditional mobile-phone network. The Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group that includes Intel, Marvell Technology Group, and dozens of other electronics companies, was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to tout a new technology called Wi-Fi Direct as a way to relieve bottlenecks in wireless networks caused by increased use of mobile devices to access the Internet. Wi-Fi, available in computers and other electronics for years, lets users get onto the Internet when they’re near a Wi-Fi-enabled router, in a so-called hotspot. Users of an Apple iPod touch, for instance, can get online without having to be on a wireless plan. Yet Wi-Fi has limits — such as when a user is out of the hotspot’s range. What’s more, the more people connected to a hotspot, whether it’s in a home or a local Starbucks, the slower the Wi-Fi connection can become. Those drawbacks have led Intel and other companies to develop standards for Wi-Fi Direct, which lets devices wirelessly connect to one another, bypassing not only a wireless network but the Wi-Fi hotspot, as well. A single device that supports the new technology can act as a hub for other Wi-Fi devices, letting them freely transfer video, digital music, and photos between them. “It’s a huge breakthrough that will create a paradigm shift in consumer electronics,” Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director for the group, says in an interview. The Wi-Fi Alliance approved standards for Wi-Fi Direct in December. Strained Mobile-Phone Networks Consumer electronics makers plan to deliver the first Wi-Fi Direct devices by June. Software updates for the installed base of Wi-Fi devices, including cell phones, may be…

Continued here:
Wi-Fi Direct May Alleviate Network Congestion

CommentSubscribe