The Wi-Fi Appliance has announced it has certified the first batch of Wi-Fi Direct products from computer equipment makers such as Realtek and Broadcom. Traditional Wi-Fi devices require the use of an access point, also known as infrastructure mode, to operate with the maximum range and throughput. The alternative--ad-hoc mod--suffers from limited range and throughput, and in my experience, never worked that well either.

Wi-Fi Direct, on the other hand, was created to enable Wi-Fi devices to connect with the same reliability as infrastructure mode, but without requiring the presence of an access point. Think of them as Bluetooth devices but with much higher speeds and longer range.  Wi-Fi Direct makes use of WPA2 for security, one of the best options for wireless data protection at the moment.

Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance elaborated on the premise behind Wi-Fi Direct, noting that: "We designed Wi-Fi Direct to unleash a wide variety of applications which require device connections, but do not need the internet or even a traditional network."

For more on this story:
- check out this article at The Inquirer
- check out this article at CNET News

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