WiFi Alliance releases simplified names for wireless standards

The WiFi Alliance wants to rebrand WiFi in a way that's certainly less wordy, but still requires a techy-translation unless you're a WiFi devotee.

A consortium of companies that bring consumers wireless internet, the WiFi Alliance, announced new naming standards for different kinds of networks on Wednesday. 

Previously, networks that could connect over different sorts of connections were called things like WiFi 802.11ac or WiFi 802.11ax. Those alphanumeric codes referred to the frequency, speed, and other particularities of the network. Now, the alliance wants to denote the capabilities of different networks by simply calling them WiFi 4, WiFi 5, or WiFi 6. Read more...