With the current popularity of Wi-Fi we expect that the account of its innovation journey will appeal to a broad audience: within business, academia and government, including strategists, policy makers and researchers in the fields of innovation, business management, standardisation and technology diffusion.

This book is divided into three parts. In Part 1 we capture the Wi-Fi journey from 1985 to 2008. We cover the early period, from invention, through innovation to mass-market success, characterised by broad diffusion and expanding applications. In so doing we recognise the shift in the application of Wi-Fi, from its original use as a wireless LAN within the enterprise to its current usage in the home and at ‘hotspots’ for internet access, whereby it has become instrumental in the hands of its users for the creation of Wi-Fi-based community networks in developed and developing countries.