Desmond Wheatley admits his company, San Diego-based Wireless Facilities Inc. (Quote, Company Info), a wireless network systems integrator, is better at engineering than marketing.

This can be the only reason WFI hasn't made more noise in the Wi-Fi world, because the company is doing ground-breaking work, including some with the The Westfield Group, an international owner and manager of premier shopping malls.

WFI recently announced a comprehensive deal with Westfield that will see it deploy mall-wide Wi-Fi networks in all 63 of the company's U.S. shopping centers by the end of this year. The first, Shoppingtown Mission Valley West in San Diego, is already up and running. Ten more are underway.

WFI charged into the Wi-Fi market in the middle of last year, but it's no start-up. The company's core business is installing and maintaining cellular and PCS networks, which it has been doing since its inception in 1994. It went public in 1999.

Market capitalization today stands at $690 million. WFI has over 1,500 employees and operates all over the world, though 70 percent of its business is stll in the U.S.

"The reason that Wi-Fi is a significant area of interest to us now is the same reason that it is for everybody else," says Wheatley, who is managing director of WFI's Wi-Fi intiative.

The low cost of entry and the commitment from Intel among other things make Wi-Fi a huge business opportunity, the company believes.

"So now with everything we've learned about deploying wireless networks we're taking that core expertise and focusing it on the wireless LAN area," Wheatley says.

WFI started with the enterprise market. It already has one blockbuster deployment at the One America Plaza business complex in San Diego where it installed a fibre and copper backbone to power a ubiquitous Wi-Fi network.

"It goes from the parking lot to the top of the building," Wheatley says. "It's now a smart building. Anything in the building that's IP addressable can be addressed. The tenants all have access to the Internet through Wi-Fi."

WFI is also deploying other innovative applications, a hallmark of the company's Wi-Fi work. Security personnel, for example, use "hat cams" -- Wi-Fi video cameras installed in their uniform caps, which are connected to a Wi-Fi-connected PDA.

At the click of a PDA button, a security guard can start streaming full-motion video over the wireless network to colleagues and home base. In the event of a dispute or altercation, the video will be invaluable evidence of what actually happened, Wheatley points out.

Janitors and maintenance staff carry tablet devices so they can respond to trouble tickets from wherever they are rather than waiting until they get back to home base to get their next assignment.

One America Plaza is WFI's flagship smart building deployment, but the company is currently working on five or six others, with more deals in the works.

It is also working with a couple of as yet unannounced California beach towns deploying municipal Wi-Fi hot zones. One will provide seamless coverage over a square mile.