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The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

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Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#71

Post by dualogy »

chihuahua wrote: post #30

The tone of the article sounds so breathlessly over-excited that it's bordering on self-parody. The cell phone companies will regret their purchase of 3G spectrum! Those fools, they did not realize their 3G cell towers would soon be rendered obsolete, nay, ridiculous, by my mighty wireless router! It's not consumers buying consumer electronics, no, it's "an authentic grassroots phenomenon."

> The tone of the article sounds so breathlessly over-excited that it's bordering on self-parody.

Welcome to every Wired article ever, certainly from its inception well into the mid-2000s at least.

Today it's at best amusing, but those were times just 1-1.5 generations ago when that was truly, genuinely generally enjoyed (by techies & youngsters) as neither Tired nor Expired but (Hot)Wired, and as a needed/welcome breath of air in an ocean of seemingly-immutable last-century whiffs & echoes =)

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#73

Post by throw0101d »

GuB-42 wrote: post #14
qingcharles wrote: post #4

It really was revolutionary. Surprisingly the biggest target market for WiFi ended up being phones, which already have a wireless connection to the Internet. 2003 WiFi was routinely awful, though. Generally unstable, poor compatibility and lousy range. A lot better now, but still could be easier for non-techs.

Also unsecure. I remember driving around looking for Wi-Fi to steal internet from, I routinely found network shares full of sensitive documents. And I only looked for open WiFi and wasn't even trying to hack anything. If I actually wanted to hack into networks, encrypted WiFi used WEP which could be cracked in minutes on a typical laptop. Most communication was unencrypted too, pwning entire WiFi networks wasn't even…

> Also unsecure.

One of my early IT jobs in the 2000s was at a SME with Wifi: after you connected radio-wise, you had to start the VPN client, because at the time there really wasn't any (effective) encryption of the signal in 802.11 itself.

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#74

Post by ghaff »

GuB-42 wrote: post #14
qingcharles wrote: post #4

It really was revolutionary. Surprisingly the biggest target market for WiFi ended up being phones, which already have a wireless connection to the Internet. 2003 WiFi was routinely awful, though. Generally unstable, poor compatibility and lousy range. A lot better now, but still could be easier for non-techs.

Also unsecure. I remember driving around looking for Wi-Fi to steal internet from, I routinely found network shares full of sensitive documents. And I only looked for open WiFi and wasn't even trying to hack anything. If I actually wanted to hack into networks, encrypted WiFi used WEP which could be cracked in minutes on a typical laptop. Most communication was unencrypted too, pwning entire WiFi networks wasn't even…

In the early 2000s hotels also still routinely charged for WiFi. But someplace like NY, you could usually find an open ssid within range. But, yes, in that period many WiFi transmissions didn’t have a password.

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#75

Post by ghaff »

bonoboTP wrote: post #63
Gigachad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss when free wifi was everywhere. When I was traveling Italy my phone seemed to almost never have signal despite paying for roaming data. And I couldn’t find free wifi anywhere. The few places that did have it like mcdonalds wanted me to authenticate with sms which wasn’t working since I had no phone signal. Used to be that every cafe and business just had an open wifi network. Now if they provide it at all it’s…

Part of the general decrease of trust.

Or just greater awareness of possible bad outcomes if you just leave your WiFi open.

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#76

Post by ghaff »

carbocation wrote: post #6
qingcharles wrote: post #4

It really was revolutionary. Surprisingly the biggest target market for WiFi ended up being phones, which already have a wireless connection to the Internet. 2003 WiFi was routinely awful, though. Generally unstable, poor compatibility and lousy range. A lot better now, but still could be easier for non-techs.

Biggest market agreed. But relative impact on utility of laptops seems enormous.

Certainly before every electronic device on WiFi became ubiquitous.

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#77

Post by ghaff »

kjellsbells wrote: post #31
danbolt wrote: post #27

When my parents had a house built in the early 2000s, my father was adamant that Ethernet should be wired to every room. It seemed like a good way to future-proof the building for the 21st century at the time. The year we moved in, tweenage me asked about connecting my Nintendo DS to the internet in order to play Animal Crossing online. I wonder if we would have done the Ethernet again if he knew that Wi-Fi was going…

Even with wifi, big houses or tough RF environments need mesh units to get ubiquitous wifi coverage. And there, ethernet wired backhaul is far, far superior to wireless. So maybe your dad was prescient in a different way. The issue with wiring your house for Ethernet is that 2003-era Cat5 that a random builder or DIYer grabs from Home Depot isn't going to carry nearly as much as the Cat6A cable you would want if you…

I had a fairly extensive Ethernet and audio speaker setup in the course of a couple of house renovations. Much of that is trashed from smoke mitigation after a kitchen fire. Will pretty much just use WiFi from here on out.

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#78

Post by teleforce »

What they didn't mention in the article and most Wi-Fi historical narrative is the critical contribution from OFDM modulation waveform technology, the idea originated and patented by the radio astronomy research of CSIRO Australia [1],[2].

In the early days of Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11 group was still testing spread spectrum and OFDM with 802.11b and 802.11a, respectively. But then it's become apparent that the best bandwidth come from the proper orthogonality of wireless modulation aka OFDM [1].

At the time of the OP article back in 2003 the incumbent cellular mobile modulation of 3G is still spread spectrum based CMDA system but by 4G it's OFDM all-in and the rest is history. CSIRO become much richer due to the patent, and radio astronomy based technology generated some hard cash for the research institute that mainly pursuing science.

[1] Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_...

[2] How the Aussie government "invented WiFi" and sued its way to $430 million [PDF]:

https://www.vbllaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/How-The-Au...

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#79

Post by andrepd »

teleforce wrote: post #78

What they didn't mention in the article and most Wi-Fi historical narrative is the critical contribution from OFDM modulation waveform technology, the idea originated and patented by the radio astronomy research of CSIRO Australia [1],[2]. In the early days of Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11 group was still testing spread spectrum and OFDM with 802.11b and 802.11a, respectively. But then it's become apparent that the best bandwid…

Just one more example of how investment in fundamental science, without explicit reference to marketability or industry applications, often produce revolutionary technology which does have economic applications.

Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)

#80

Post by encom »

bonoboTP wrote: post #61
encom wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they used to say kids were good with computers. I think if you graph computer illiteracy vs. year of birth, people who were born around the 80's are in the bottom of a bathtub curve. The boomers are hopeless with tech, because they grew up without it. But gen-z is also hopeless, because they grew up with opaque appliances like Iphones. You use it how Apple allows you to. The inner workings of it are hidden behind…

This also applies to many other things, such as cars. But perhaps the timeline is shifted. But if we go earlier a bit, it was common for people to know much more about house construction, electric work, flooring, making furniture etc. IKEA emulates some of this, but it's really a different thing to live around things you truly understand, you participated in builting your house, you know how and why everything is in…

It's why I became an electrician, and specialised in telecoms. I realised in my 20's that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life typing on a keyboard, and telecoms is the right kind of combination of geekery and practical work. Plus I know all the fundamental electrician stuff. I highly recommend this career path if you feel the same way. My last job was in robotics where my combined skillset of being a Linux-focused computer+networking geek and having electrical skills made me pretty unique. Lately my career has taken a bizarre turn where I do AV, networking and electrical work, plus... swimming pool maintenance. Life, uh, finds a way.

Anyways, apart from knowing how a car works on a theoretical level, I have no idea how to fix mine, and getting fucked at the dealership is a part of my life I have begrudgingly accepted.

Thanks for reading my blog.

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