The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
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The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
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Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#2I still remember the shock when my father told me he had connected his laptop to the internet without a cable. I'd heard of wireless networking but didn't know it was a standard feature in laptops at the time and all you need is to find a wifi point.
Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#3Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#4It 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.
Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#5Remember the Steve Jobs presentation where he put an iBook through a hula hoop to prove there are no cables? Classic
Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#6It 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.
Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#7And the FCC just so happened to approve the spectrum of frequencies that human bodies absorb, turning each Wi-Fi hotspot into surveillance spotlight, and each handheld device into a unique beacon. With everything we know about NSA's influence in other government agencies (like NIST), I think it's entirely reasonable to ask, "why 2.4 GHz?" But I've not seen anyone ask that question here. I'd also wonder whether NRO has satellite capability to measure Wi-Fi signals (and interference from human bodies) from orbit.
Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#8> Like other open spectrum technologies rising in its wake, Wi-Fi is a way to use the handful of frequencies set aside for unrestricted consumer use. That's true of the old CB radio, too, but unlike the trucker channels Wi-Fi is digital and smart enough to avoid congestion. After 100 years of regulations that assumed serious wireless technologies were fragile and in need of protection by monopolies on exclusive frequencies (making spectrum the most valuable commodity of the information age), Wi-Fi is fully capable of protecting itself.
It’s true that, unlike other wireless transmission technologies, Wi-Fi allows any company to make a product that can transmit or receive on all frequency bands authorized by a country, whereas for mobile networks, for example, each operator acquires exclusive rights to a frequency band.
That shows that open standards work well and enable healthy competition.
Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#9Side note, it's interesting how common it is for tech-savvy people to wire their homes for ethernet (more common now than 10-15 years ago) and how it is still common, or at least not rare, for people reliant on wi-fi to suffer from video streaming issues. The underlying technology keeps getting better, so maybe the improvements will outpace the growth in congestion at some point -- fingers crossed that makers of apps and household appliances don't eat up all future gains and keep us stuck in the same place.
Re: The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
#10Side note, it's interesting how common it is for tech-savvy people to wire their homes for ethernet (more common now than 10-15 years ago) and how it is still common, or at least not rare, for people reliant on wi-fi to suffer from video streaming issues. The underlying technology keeps getting better, so maybe the improvements will outpace the growth in congestion at some point -- fingers crossed that makers of apps…
I would love for a single AP to serve 500mbps throughout a whole house.
Though I would certainly not have complained about 50-100mbps throughout in 2003 — 1GBps wired networking was not mainstream then.