In fact, despite the black eye the wireless technology got from many failed Wi-Fi municipal systems, worldwide access point shipments should exceed 70 million by 2010.

The market research firm said older 802.11a/g access points still dominate the installed Wi-Fi population with a market share of about 84%. In recent months enterprises in particular have been switching to draft 2.0 802.11n technology, led by higher-education and health care applications.

"Much of the growth seen in 2008, particularly on the enterprise side, is attributed to the explosive uptake of 802.11n products," said Fong. "802.11n is expected to overtake shipments of 802.11a/g by 2012 with more than 60% market share."

While 802.11g products still dominate consumer Wi-Fi with 80% of consumer shipments, ABI Research expects the faster 802.11n products to take off in the home market, too, as demand for consumer connectivity among electronic devices grows, fueled by gaming, TV, and laptop applications.

The Wi-Fi boom also has been spurred by the imagination of many companies, which have come up with new and ingenious ways of using Wi-Fi. For example, Skyhook Wireless has developed a hybrid positioning system of Wi-Fi, GPS, and cellular technologies that utilizes a database of Wi-Fi access points to create highly accurate location-based applications. And, based on its recent studies, Skyhook said its use of Wi-Fi access points is responsible for accuracy that's considerably higher than location-based services of many established offerings from leading cell phone service providers.

Another unexpected use of Wi-Fi has been introduced by WeFi, an Israeli company that has tapped the exploding Wi-Fi global base to permit consumers to connect to Wi-Fi access points anywhere in the world where they are available. Consumers can use the service by downloading free software. They can then use any WeFi access point for free. The network has social networking overtones because users who make their identity known on the WeFi network can find each other.