ng the sublime characteristics of Feng Shui. Interconnect- ing the buildings are carefully poured concrete sidewalks, angling up and over and up and over, providing walkways from one building to the next. The careful observer, however, will also notice the warren of "goat trails" worn into the grass that run from building to building (see Figure 6-15), demonstrating that while the angular sidewalks are aesthetically pleasing, they violate the rule that observes correctly that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. (In fact, I maintain that architects should dispense with the sidewalks altogether, wait six months beyond building occupancy, and then pave the goat trails. It makes a lot more sense and saves on concrete). This is essentially how Wi-Fi came about and it's important because other "competing" standards did not follow this path-and are experi- encing very different market acceptance profiles. The technology was introduced in 1992 when wireless LAN companies began to make use of the 2.4 GHz spectrum component where Wi-Fi operates today. It is important to note that the technology was released before the standards were complete and manufacturers, seeing the promise of a new techno- logical innovation, jumped on the bandwagon and began building Wi-Fi devices. Standards development efforts followed and the result was what Figure 6-15 Goat trail Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Access Technologies Access Technologies you might expect: a collection of incompatible standards that created problems in the industry that were reminiscent of the "modem wars" of the 1990s, when two competing and incompatible 56 Kbps modem stan- dards were released, creating implementation paralysis throughout the industry. Hence the goat trail comparison: Wi-Fi was created as the result of a "path of least resistance" progres