The Innovation Journey of Wi-Fi: The Road to Global Success

Wolter Lemstra · Vic Hayes · John Groenewegen

Nov 2010 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

Wi-Fi has become the preferred means for connecting to the internet - at home, in the office, in hotels and at airports. Increasingly, Wi-Fi also provides internet access for remote communities where it is deployed by volunteers in community-based networks, by operators in 'hotspots' and by municipalities in 'hotzones'. This book traces the global success of Wi-Fi to the landmark change in radio spectrum policy by the US FCC in 1985, the initiative by NCR Corporation to start development of Wireless-LANs and the drive for an open standard IEEE 802.11, released in 1997. It also singles out and explains the significance of the initiative by Steve Jobs at Apple to include Wireless-LAN in the iBook, which moved the product from the early adopters to the mass market. The book explains these developments through first-hand accounts by industry practitioners and concludes with reflections and implications for government policy and firm strategy.

About the author

Wolter Lemstra is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Technology, Policy and Management at the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft) and Senior Lecturer at the Strategy Academy, The Netherlands. He has twenty-five years of experience in the telecom sector, at Philips, AT&T and Lucent Technologies.

Vic Hayes is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Technology, Policy and Management at the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), The Netherlands. He is the recipient of eight awards, including The Economist Innovation Award 2004, the Dutch Vosko Trophy, the IEEE Hans Karlsson Award, and the IEEE Steinmetz Award.

John Groenewegen is Professor of the Economics of Infrastructures at the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), The Netherlands. He is also a research fellow at the Tinbergen Institute (TI) in the Rotterdam School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam.