Conclusion

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In the early days of this technology, a Wi-Fi card cost $300 to $500 and it took incredible perseverance to get the software working, and a valiant struggle thereafter to persuade the operating system to behave correctly. That, thankfully, is now all in the past. Today, Wi-Fi is truly plug-and-play. Anyone can use this technology-your grandmother, your artistic aunt, your technophobic father.

The advantages and benefits of Wi-Fi are such that it's about to "go mainstream," becoming a part of everyday experience. Soon Wi-Fi will be built into all computing devices; most portable devices are already Wi-Fi-enabled (printers just joined the Wi-Fi club). It will be as prevalent as dial-up networking-something you don't think much about because it's always available.

For Wi-Fi to perform all of these miracles the vendor community must develop and deploy low-cost, mobile communication devices-this is vital to the success of Wi-Fi in developing and emerging nations. Such devices will, in turn, become the "computers of tomorrow." Optimally, the end-user's cost should be no more than $100 per device. This is plausible, assuming that emerging markets should create a demand for 10 million such units a year, allowing economy of scale to lower prices, thus making Wi-Fi-enabled, low-cost, portable computing devices the standard device used by the next billion or so people to join the projected Wireless Net.

Then, of course, content developers and enterprises will need to put together applications that can leverage all of this wireless technology. They must think of innovative ways in which millions of users can interact via portable, high-speed devices.

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