I recently found out the Wi-fi doesnt stand for wireless fidelity and that was just a trademarked term so why did we call it wi-fi.
I genuinely don’t know the answer
I recently found out the Wi-fi doesnt stand for wireless fidelity and that was just a trademarked term so why did we call it wi-fi.
I genuinely don’t know the answer
Comments
Jell-O, Xerox, Aspirin – also didn’t stand for anything.
Companies (or tech alliances) hire companies like Interbrand to come up with catchy product names.
>>The name Wi-Fi, commercially used at least as early as August 1999,[30] was coined by the brand-consulting firm Interbrand. The Wi-Fi Alliance had hired Interbrand to create a name that was “a little catchier than ‘IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence’.”[31][32] According to Phil Belanger, a founding member of the Wi-Fi Alliance, the term Wi-Fi was chosen from a list of ten names that Interbrand proposed.[31] Interbrand also created the Wi-Fi logo. The yin-yang Wi-Fi logo indicates the certification of a product for interoperability.[33] The name is often written as WiFi, Wifi, or wifi, but these are not approved by the Wi-Fi Alliance.
It’s a play on “hi-fi”. It’s for marketing and advertising, not precision.
It’s a pun on Hi-Fi, which is short for High Fidelity, an audiophile term for reproduced sound that sounds reasonably close to the original.
Most people are probably unfamiliar with the term Hi-Fi since it hasn’t been used much in marketing since the early 90s, so it’s understandable that Wi-Fi seems a little disconnected (pun intended) in an etymological sense.
The “fi” doesn’t stand for fidelity because the idea was to have a name that was instantly catchy and familiar, not necessarily be meaningful.
The origin of Bluetooth, and more specifically, its sigil, is far more interesting.
[removed]
Because “IEEE standard 802.11” doesn’t fit nicely on stickers
I got this question wrong at trivia once because the quiz master was convinced it stood for “wireless fidelity”.
One of its names is WLAN, which stands for wireless local area network
Because-Fi
It is getting to be even more meaningless now that there seems be an increasing trend of people just referring to the Internet service to their home as “Wi-Fi”.
Wireless – Fireless
Marketing. It is easy to say, reminds people of hi-fi, and sounds unique.
Wireless fireless
I always assumed it stood for “Wireless Fidelity”, not sure why(fi)
People just named shit whatever they wanted.
Today nobody remembers what a hi-fi even was. It was like hi-def but for analog audio. Early AM radios were made for talk, and sounded like ass when music played. So a hi-fi was just a radio, record player or stereo system that produced actual decent musical sound. Today, they all do. (Ok. Almost all.) Just like all modern TVs are HD. The name HiFi was already obsolete long before WiFi came out, but a lot of 90s grunge bands started marketing LoFi – intentionally dirty sound.
So in the early 2000s when they needed a name for this nifty new wireless shit, apple chose to call it AirPort but everyone else basically settled on WiFi for, um, no reason at all. Because it was a play on words back then 🤷♂️
Played on Hi-Fi, I believe is the prevailing thought.
Kind of like the knowledge that SOS doesn’t actually stand for “Save our Souls” or “Save our Ship”, which are the common beliefs.
…—… was just an easy, fast, identifiable string of beeps and boops!
The name “Wi-Fi” is a brand name, not an acronym for “wireless fidelity”. It was created by Interbrand, a branding agency, to provide a catchy and memorable name for the emerging wireless networking technology, IEEE 802.11b. While the Wi-Fi Alliance did initially use a tagline “The Standard for Wireless Fidelity”, this was later dropped as it was seen as a confusing and unnecessary addition
In Germany we call it WLAN
Interbrand was hired by the Wi-Fi Alliance (then known as the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance) to create a catchy and memorable name for the new wireless networking technology. The name “Wi-Fi” was inspired by the existing term “Hi-Fi” (High Fidelity) from the audio industry, suggesting a high-quality experience. Interbrand also created the Wi-Fi logo.
From Google
Free Wife, Hi!
I thought it was Wience Fiction
Wi(reless) Fi(nternet) 😀
it’s called wifi because it’s named after the guy who created the first wifi router – william fastinternetski
It’s as though there’s an entire Wikipedia article about this, which goes into way more detail than you want.
Wi-Fi is a play on Hi-Fi, which was a term that was thrown around all the time in the 90s and early 2000s to describe really nice component stereo systems. That term has mostly died out, but Wi-Fi remains.
That’s why we call it WLAN in Germany.
Everyone asking Why Wi-Fi, no one asks How Wi-Fi … Why not?
It’s a marketing term trademarked by Wifi Alliance which is a non-profit trade association made up by members Apple, Intel, Cisco, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Samsung, Microsoft and a few more.
They figured that “WIFI” was much easier to sell and market than “IEEE 802.11b” (and it’s successors)
They “say” it doesn’t stand for anything, but I don’t believe it. I believe it stands for “WIreless Fucking Internet!” and they’re just afraid to admit they swear.
So many confidently incorrect answers in here. WiFi does NOT stand for fidelity. “The term was proposed by a marketing firm in part because of the term’s resonance with hi-fi. (Wi-Fi is, however, not an abbreviation for “wireless fidelity.”)”
Literally a nonsense word made up by marketing.
wireless fidelity
It was a spoof of the term “hi-fi” which means high fidelity which referred to 1. 1950s/60s era home stereo systems 2. certain higher-resolution audio storage formats used in broadcasting industry.
First came the Wi-Fi Alliance, then the technology was marketed by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Wi-Fi is actually a trademarked term coined by the Wi-Fi Alliance. It’s a marketing name chosen to be more memorable and appealing than the technical term “IEEE 802.11”. Wi-Fi is not an acronym for Wireless Fidelity (in any language)
It was invented in Australia. We shorten the names of everything here.
Macca’s, Servo, ‘Straya.
We aren’t going to say “Wireless”. It’s too many syllables.
Winternet-Finnection
Why do we say Mofo when “fucker” doesn’t have an O?
Shit just rolls off the tongue better.
Ask Hedy Lamarr.
It does has meaning if you decided to search for it.
Wi-Fi is a wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to provide wireless high-speed Internet access. A common misconception is that the term Wi-Fi is short for “wireless fidelity,” however Wi-Fi is a trademarked phrase that refers to IEEE 802.11x standards.
https://watech.wa.gov/wifi-definition-and-meaning#:~:text=Wi%2DFi%20is%20a%20wireless,to%20IEEE%20802.11x%20standards.
The term ‘Wi-Fi’ is not universally used. In Germany, for example, people may be confused if you ask for the ‘Wi-Fi’ password, as they typically use the term ‘WLAN’ (wireless LAN). See:https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1iwimr1/wifi_in_german_is_wlan/
Not precisely the same thing, but a Canadian dollar coin is called a Loonie because it has a depiction of a loon on it.
A two dollar coin is called a Toonie. There is no animal called a toon, it just… happened.
Sometimes the answers are right there in front of you.
Wireless fucking internet!
The internet connection has wireless fidelity.
I don’t know who you “found out” your information from. It may not be listed in Websters as such (maybe it is? I can’t keep track of some of the silliness they’ve added, recently), but “WiFi” is a direct adaptation of the phrase “HiFi”, a ubiquitous shorthand for “high fidelity”. Not “just a trademarked term”, but a popular phrase that marked a technological innovation by referencing a previous one. Whether somebody trademarked it after the fact doesn’t change that.
Well , Wi the Fi not ?
Start calling it weefee
Always assumed it was Wireless Frequency Internet
Wee fee
Some times names are just made up because it helps to sell a technology.
You try getting your mother to connect to the 802.11ax wireless local area network. Its going to be a struggle.
Obviously it stands for Wireless Fucking Internet
/s
Wience Fiction.
Wait so it doesn’t mean wireless finternet?
Wireless fidelity?
Wireless-Fidelity
OP answered his own question.
Does he think Harold Bluetooth came up with bluetooth wireless connection?
It’s a marketing term. Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s not Wireless Finternet?
I always thought it was “Wireless Fidelity”
Pun on hifi.
Made it easily recognisable, plus it has “wi” in the name to remind people of “wireless”