Motorola has joined the governing board of the non-profit Wi-Fi Alliance with the hope of creating lower-cost, compatible networks for richer mobile multimedia experiences.

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“The architecture Motorola has already defined for its Seamless Mobility evolution provides us with a blueprint to drive our work in the compatibility standards arena,” said Mike Pellon, vice president of Motorola’s standards unit. “Motorola’s involvement with groups such as the Wi-Fi Alliance will make possible new wireless communication networks that combine cellular and Wi-Fi in exciting ways. Our goal is to reduce the cost of such networks while providing enhanced data and multimedia services to users.”

“Wi-Fi is rapidly expanding beyond the PC market segment into phones and consumer electronics,” said Frank Hanzlik, Managing Director of the Wi-Fi Alliance. “Motorola's industry leadership and global presence will help us continue to drive industry growth through our Wi-Fi CERTIFIED interoperability program.”

Wi-Fi is a key component of Motorola's Seamless Mobility vision that enables an extension of broadband services into the home and business environments. Motorola is currently working to integrate the technology into cellular handsets to enable broader services and access while roaming between wide area and local networks.

Motorola has been active in recent metropolitan projects through the creation of public Wi-Fi hot-spots and has increased its focus on the Public Safety market. The company also is working to create ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks using mesh technology and experimenting with projects such as Wi-Fi-only handsets optimized for services to transmit voice communications over the Internet.