During the Mobile World Congress last week, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced that it has certified more than 200 devices as part of its Wi-Fi Protected Setup Program. The program, which was launched just over a year ago, is intended to help consumer and small-business users to secure their Wi-Fi networks.
Products certified for Wi-Fi Protected Setup include dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellular phones, Wi-Fi enabled printers, and more than 80 products featuring Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0 technology. Just over half of the devices are also certified for WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia) Quality of Service, which optimizes them for voice, gaming, and multimedia applications.
The WFA has also launched testing support for NFC (Near-Field Communication) as an additional Wi-Fi Protected Setup network configuration method.
NFC is a short-range wireless technology that allows consumer electronics, mobile devices and PCs to communicate. Accrording to WFA:
In the NFC method, a user touches a card or token to designated areas on an access point and a client device to connect them. NFC joins two previously-tested mechanisms, push-button and PIN entry, to simplify the process of joining devices to a security-enabled Wi-Fi network.
Like the push-button method, the NFC technique is especially useful to connect devices that don’t have a keyboard-oriented user interface, such as cameras, gaming devices, and other consumer electronics. Manufacturers now have even more flexibility in how to deploy Wi-Fi Protected Setup, ultimately giving consumers more choice when they buy Wi-Fi CERTIFIED phones and consumer electronics.
A list of all products Wi-Fi CERTIFIED for Wi-Fi Protected Setup, as well as a white paper (available at no charge) which describes the specification in detail, is available at the Wi-Fi Alliance Web site.
This article first appeared on Wi-Fi Planet
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