Wireless LAN Interoperability Forum Applauds the Adoption of IEEE 802.11
CHICAGO — June 27, 1997 — The Wireless LAN Interoperability Forum (WLI Forum) today announced its public support for the adoption of the IEEE 802.11 standard and urges the supplier community to take the next step: delivering multivendor interoperability.
The WLI Forum is committed to the development and certification of wireless interoperability, and currently has more than 30 members.
Several members of the WLI Forum are developing 802.11-compliant products today. The Forum will apply the same rigorous interoperability testing standards and certification to those products as it has to OpenAir 2.4-compliant products. Current Forum members are also contacting prospective nonmember suppliers of 802.11 products to invite their participation. The WLI Forum has spent the past 12 months testing and certifying interoperable products based on the OpenAir interface and has certified more than 20 products to date.
"The true value of the WLI Forum has always been fostering interoperability," said Jeff Tingley, chairman of the Wireless LAN Interoperability Forum. "The approval of the 802.11 specification allows the interoperability realized under the OpenAir specification to be applied to 802.11-based products. Multiple standards exist in many markets; what is important is the interoperability within the standard. This is the goal of the WLI Forum."
About WLI Forum The Wireless LAN Interoperability Forum (WLI Forum) was founded to promote the growth of the wireless LAN market by delivering interoperable products and services today at all levels of the value chain. The Forum helps achieve this mission by providing an open RF standard specification, based on proven frequency hopping spread spectrum technology that allows independent parties to develop compatible products. To ensure interoperability, the forum also has defined a clear method of certifying and identifying "WLI Forum-Compatible" products.
Also, a part of the group's charter is to provide a forum for reviewing wireless LAN standards efforts, such as IEEE 802.11, and determining what interoperability they could provide to users, member companies and the industry as a whole. The WLI Forum World Wide Web site is located at http://www.wlif.com .
WLI Forum Members The following companies are members of the WLI Forum: AMP, Andrew, BASS, BreezeCOM, Comtron, Cruise Technologies, Data General, Fujitsu Personal Systems, Hewlett Packard Medical, Intermec, Kansai, Kinetic, LXE, Matsushita Inter-Techno, Mitsubishi, Newton, Nomadic Technologies, Norand, NTT-IT, Proxim, Raytheon, Seiko Epson, Toshiba, Wavenet and WiSE Medical Systems.
CONTACT:
Proxim
Jeff Tingley, 508/898-6002
Brian Button, 415/526-3691