Wireless networking is widely, and rightly, regarded as a fundamental technology nearly as important as computing
itself. One reason for that being true is that the Wi-Fi industry, collectively, has continually pushed the performance
envelope of wireless to guarantee that it was keeping up with how people were using first their PCs and, later, their
mobile phones and tablets. Watching a high-resolution movie over Wi-Fi was once considered a wild, even
unrealistic, fantasy. Soon, with IEEE 802.11ac, millions of people will be doing so every day. Although the future is
uncertain, two things are a safe bet. The first is that digital devices will continue to demand ever-greater amounts of
data. The second is that the Wi-Fi industry will be keeping pace. Its track record in innovation over the years has been
first-rate, and it shows no signs of slowing down now.