Wi-Fi: It Just Keeps Going and Growing

As Wi-Fi approaches its 25th birthday, innovations based on the technology just keep on coming.

A company called Anyfi Networks today launched a product that gives a Wi-Fi network the basic properties of a cell phone network, which means a user could move from hotspot to hotspot without losing coverage or having to authenticate on the network again. Another startup, called Compiled Networks offers technology that has the same effect. If Wi-Fi networks can be linked using standard (in other words, cheaper and interoperable) technology, it becomes harder to run through the limited gigabytes or megabytes in your high-cost cellular data plans, which is a good thing for consumers and possibly good for carriers whose networks are overloaded.