Wi-Fi: what does it mean? Nothing at all !

If everyone has already heard of Wi-Fi, you should know that it is thanks to the work of communicators who popularized this name. This wireless communication standard is actually called IEEE 802.11 with barbaric letters at the end to specify the generation (“a” for the first, “n” for the third, “ac” for the fifth or “be” for the seventh and latest).

Finding a vendor name…

When the technology was ready at the end of the 90s, the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance – which brought together 6 major players in the telecommunications market at the time (Nokia, Cisco, Lucent, etc.) – asked the Interbrand brand to find a name and a visual identity to sell their equipment. The American company finds a nice logo in the shape of a ying/yang and the name Wi-Fi, which means nothing, but looks a bit like HiFi (for High Fidelity).

Wireless Fidelity doesn’t mean anything either!

Only here, the technicians of the Wi-Fi Alliance don’t really like this term, because it means nothing. The firm will then try to give meaning to the word and will push the term “Wireless Fidelity” in the early 2000s by placing it on t-shirts and various communication media. When “Wi-Fi” becomes a universally accepted name, the Alliance will stop insisting on giving meaning to the name and sabotaging the work of Interbrand.

So if someone asks you if we should say “the” or “the” Wi-Fi, answer that we don’t care because it simply doesn’t mean anything!