Phil Belanger has more than 20 years of experience in R&D and marketing for the network systems industry and has played a seminal role in the success of wireless LANs. One of the founders of the Wi-Fi Alliance, formally known as the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance or WECA, Belanger served as chairman from the organization's inception in August of 1999 through March of 2001. Belanger also was one of the authors of the DFWMAC protocol, which was selected as the foundation for the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol standard, and is the current chairman of Pass-One, an industry membership organization focused on creating a global standard for wireless Internet service.

Belanger served as Wayport's vice president of wireless business development in 2000 and later became vice president of marketing. Belanger formed several key business and strategic partnerships for Wayport, including Microsoft and Dell, and his team built awareness for Wi-Fi-based public access to the Internet.

Belanger held various executive positions at Aironet from 1995 through 1999 where he was instrumental in the Aironet IPO and eventual sale of the company to Cisco Systems. Prior to Aironet, Belanger was vice president of wireless development at Xircom Inc., where he was responsible for engineering and product marketing for wireless LAN and wireless wide-area network (WAN) products. Belanger authored Xircom's Netwave medium-access protocol and system-level wireless LAN (WLAN) protocols. He was also responsible for launching the Netwave product line through Xircom's worldwide distribution channels. Earlier in his career, Belanger was general manager of communications products at Adaptec, Inc. and director of the network architecture group at Corvus Systems.