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I have found in talking with people that only the really tech geeks understand the difference between "Wi-Fi" versus "Bluetooth" wireless technology, so I wanted to write an article to explain the two, which aside from being wireless, are very different things. I will explain both, hopefully in layperson's terms but then also in technical "geek" terms.

"Wi-Fi" is the nickname for the IEEE 802.11p specification for what is called a "broadband, wide-area" wireless network also known as a Wide-Area Local-Area Network (WLAN). It supports connection speeds up to 1Mps (megabit per second, oor one million bits per secound) and the number of connections that can be accepted depends on the hardware used. The downside is that the wired connection for the "Access Point", as it's known, limits the overall number of connections and speed, since ultimately it is a shared connection, and the more people using a Wi-Fi "hot spot" (as it's known), the slower your connection will be.

It was created by a group called the "Wi-Fi Alliance" to help support mobile computing devices like PDAs, laptops, and more recently cell/mobile phones, VoIP phones, gaming systems (Sony's PSP), and even TVs and DVD players. The group has a trademarked name and logo for certified systems.

In short, "Wi-Fi" is something that creates a WLAN, a network over a certain area, where any device that supports Wi-Fi and can connect to the node (assuming its open, or using a password) and get Internet access. There are several cities that already offer free or inexpensive Wi-Fi access across most of their metro areas, with dozen more in progress in the U.S. as of April 2007. Every major city in Japan has complete Wi-Fi access as of some time in 2006.

Depending on the IEEE 802.11 spec followed, Wi-Fi uses either single carrier direct-sequence spread spectrum radio technology (part of the larger family of spread spectrum systems) and multi-carrier OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) radio technology, both over the 2.4Ghz radio bandwidth frequency range.

An important thing to point out is the range/distance of a WLAN Wi-Fi network. The "access point", the hardware that provides the wireless connection, is what dictates exactly how far the signal is transmitted. This has nothing to do with the specifications but rather what the hardware can do: Wi-Fi towers can cover many square miles whereas your average home system tends to just work through most or all of your home.

You can get all the technical details

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