This week both Qualcomm and Quantenna have used the term SON, a convenient acronym stolen from LTE, in conjunction with WiFi. Quantenna calls its software framework for looking after WiFi in the home SONiQ, while Qualcomm has added features to its year-old WiSON. Wireless Watch’s sister service, Faultline Online Reporter, argues in this analysis that WiFi SON is a misnomer and SON (self-organizing/optimizing network) should be left firmly in the cellular camp. First, WiFi is not a network, it is a cluster of individual separate networks which allow local network access. Access points are aware of each other purely as interference, and avoid one another. SON implies a central controlling intelligence that makes a cluster of APs – be they…