[HN Gopher] The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
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       The Wi-Fi Revolution (2003)
        
       Author : Cieplak
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2025-10-12 07:35 UTC (5 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
        
       | Waraqa wrote:
       | I 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.
        
       | Waraqa wrote:
       | https://archive.is/8tLce
        
       | qingcharles wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | carbocation wrote:
         | Biggest market agreed. But relative impact on utility of
         | laptops seems enormous.
        
       | Synaesthesia wrote:
       | Remember the Steve Jobs presentation where he put an iBook
       | through a hula hoop to prove there are no cables? Classic
        
       | davisr wrote:
       | And 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.
        
       | xzjis wrote:
       | > 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.
        
       | dkarl wrote:
       | Side 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.
        
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       (page generated 2025-10-17 23:00 UTC)