Whether I’m traveling or just idle in between things, and I have my laptop with me, there is nothing more pleasant than finding an open Wi-Fi spot. Open or not, Wi-Fi has become not just essential but an expected feature of today’s living and working environments, so it’s easy to overlook that this connectivity is made possible by the efforts of the Wi-Fi Alliance — who, and I sheepishly was unaware of this, own the trademark to Wi-Fi?. The term is to air-bound internet connections what Kleenex is to tissues

Whether I’m traveling or just idle in between things, and I have my laptop with me, there is nothing more pleasant than finding an open Wi-Fi spot. Open or not, Wi-Fi has become not just essential but an expected feature of today’s living and working environments, so it’s easy to overlook that this connectivity is made possible by the efforts of the Wi-Fi Alliance — who, and I sheepishly was unaware of this, own the trademark to Wi-Fi?. The term is to air-bound internet connections what Kleenex is to tissues. Established in 1999 by six companies — 3Com, Aironet, Intersil, Lucent Technologies, Nokia and Symbol Technologies — as a consortium whose vision is to be “the center of seamless connectivity, providing the best connected experience across devices, market segments, and geographies.” And to ensure this vision, the Alliance is committed to ensuring that we get the best products for this experience and offers official certification in the form of the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ programs. There is plenty of geekery to go through to learn what the certification ensures but what we, as consumers, need to know is that when we see the logo above, all is good.

The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n logo program has been updated to support a wide range of devices tuned for varying performance criteria. In addition to removing the term “draft” from the logo, devices with particular feature sets may now use taglines in conjunction with the logo. Devices can now be designated “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED dual-stream n” or “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED multi-stream n” to indicate that they have passed tests for specific performance-enhancing features. In addition, a matrix of product features may be used by some vendors to outline frequency band and spatial stream support of a particular product.
— Press Release

The obligatory three-dimensional version.

Not to point out the obvious but the changes are subtle. So subtle that I wonder if it was even worth the effort. The word “CERTIFIED” has been changed from one Tobias Frere-Jones typeface, Interstate, to another Tobias Frere-Jones typeface, Gotham (of course, right?). The “a, b, g, n” letters have gone from Eurostile to Gotham too, and the “Wi-Fi” has been Gothamized for good measure. The spacing of the bars has been messed with for the worse, I liked the even spacing of the old one. These are all just cosmetic changes that don’t make the logo more functional nor more official. But, hey, if it gets us better Wi-Fi connections, knock yourselves out Alliance!

Thanks to Alan Kriegel for the tip.

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Wi-Fi (and Gotham) Certified