 Historically, the interconnection between computers and peripherals on a network was done using proprietary, or company-specific, interfaces. While proprietary interfaces allowed for tightly coupled products optimized for their particular function, it did not generally allow for the introduction of other competitive products. As a result, purchasers were not able to optimize their financial investments by buying products from different companies according to which offered the best economic returns. Instead, purchasers were forced to pick one service provider and use all of their products.
As the market diversified and purchasers began to demand more flexibility in product selection, standards for interconnection became necessary so that products from different companies would have a common “language” to “talk” to each other, enabling them all to work on the same network. As the “traffic cops” of the network, wireless routers must be designed to meet a number of standards so that they can perform their tasks with a wide variety of computers and peripherals.
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