“Epilogue” – it sounds like the story is ending. But obviously the Wi-Fi story is continuing strong, evidenced by the contents of this book.

So let us consider this as not an “epilogue”, but as just a brief pause to catch our breath. This book has covered so many of the topics that we know are important today. But based on our past experience, who really knows what future applications will be dreamed up? Who really knows which new technologies will prove to be important in the future evolution of Wi-Fi? It is very humbling to recall that back in the early and mid-1990s, when the IEEE 802.11 standards were originally being developed, the primary application on the minds of the key participants was not networking in the home, or wireless Internet access, or public hotspots, or voice over IP, or multimedia services, or city-wide wireless – but things like wireless bar code scanning and retail store inventory management. These ”vertical” applications for Wi-Fi technology continue to be important today, but oh how far we have travelled.

So only an actual seer could predict the real future of Wi-Fi over the next 10 years. But one thing is clear: Wi-Fi will continue to play a role in our lives. Everything in technology has a finite lifespan – hardware products have a lifespan, software products have a lifespan – but the lifespan of a successful protocol, implemented in millions of devices worldwide, can be very, very long.