When I moved to the temporary housing that Microsoft provided me in Redmond in 2004, the first thing I did was to buy a laptop. The most memorable access point around me was an open connection with the name "Bring food and beer to B308". I used that person's Internet for a while, and wanted to bring beer to them. Unfortunately, when I surveyed the area, I could find no "Bxxx" blocks in Timberlawn Apartments, only A's. It was probably a neighboring complex. I want to use this opportunity thank that person.
I ran a small ISP around the same time that used this behavioral pattern to bring down the customer acquisition cost to near zero. Essentially we sold ADSL connections with Wi-Fi and a second SSID where anybody could connect and sign up for internet access. If too may signed up we sent out personal offers for ADSL service to some of them and wired up their homes too. Fun project, but stressful and not very profitable.
I still find it strange how people use the word “WiFi” to mean internet. For so many young people today, WiFi IS the internet. They have never plugged in an Ethernet cable in their life.
I still get frustrated by WiFi, though, and never use it for my computers unless I had no choice. So many devices these days, the performance is still subpar. Packet loss on the best connections cause so many performance degradations.
> I still find it strange how people use the word “WiFi” to mean internet. For so many young people today, WiFi IS the internet.
I don't think that's the case, people don't call mobile internet "WiFi". In their minds "WiFi" probably means "home internet", so it's more like they call LAN "WiFi", because they have never used cable connection.
I have a friend who, no matter how many times I have explained it, calls her Internet connection WiFi. I was really confused at first when she said she pays for Wi-Fi. She's 27.
I think if you're not "on Wifi" then you're "on data" (or perhaps "on 5G" if it's a social status thing). If one were to connect via Starlink then it would still be correct to say you were on Wifi I think but if you could hook up ethernet directly... I think most of us would say you're now "on satellite"?
I didn't even consider that the newest iPhones can connect to satellites directly.
Yeah, that’s true. I even thought about that when I was typing my comment but wasn’t sure the best way to articulate the difference, but I think you are right with it being about home internet vs cellular.
Although I really think it is just used to mean “non-phone based internet”, rather than just home internet.
I don’t think people realize tha Wi-Fi is a brand name for 'IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence'." WiFi, Wifi, or wifi, are not approved by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Despite common belief the name Wi-Fi is not short-form for 'Wireless Fidelity'.
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 fun considering how easy it was.
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.
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.
I think it is more correct to say open wifi made it easier to connect to otherwise already insecure systems. After all, anybody in the house with an Ethernet cable could get those sensitive documents, right? Open wifi just expected users to actually follow the mantra of the time: don’t trust the infrastructure!
>the biggest target market for WiFi ended up being phones
If a particular category is considered then yes, phones are the biggest chunk. But virtually every device these days comes with WiFi. So wifi is now the default method of connecting something.
Interestingly, I see an increasing number of young-ish people that simply skip "landline" ISPs (hence WiFi) entirely and only use their phone.
Mostly because around here you can have 100GB over 5G for less than 10€ + they mostly don't use computers (a.k.a laptops) except for a) school (where they have free WiFi+Internet) and b) binge-watching the occasional Netflix (and then they use connection sharing)
Their first move upon setting up a new phone is to disable Bluetooth+WiFi to, uh, "save battery" (their cargo-cult answer, every single time)
That is increasingly true and will only get more mainstream as times comes by. Why pay for Home WiFi. ( Internet ) when you have 5G / Mobile Data. 5GSA will further increase Mobile network capacity, and mobile network will be all you need. MNOs will specially those without cable / fibre to home infrastructure are already promoting 5G home solution as replacement.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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."
It seems to me that, for the most part, it was warranted enthusiasm. Wi-Fi has lived up to most of the wildest predictions and probably achieved even greater adoption than anyone could have imagined back in the early days.
That's certainly true; Wi-Fi is a useful and almost indispensable product. I just don't think it's a revolution in which the virtuous consumers wrest control from the evil overloads of Big Spectrum.
I was using computers before Wi-Fi and eventually bought a Wi-Fi router for use at home, so it's not that I've never experienced world without Wi-Fi.
> 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 =)
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I still get frustrated by WiFi, though, and never use it for my computers unless I had no choice. So many devices these days, the performance is still subpar. Packet loss on the best connections cause so many performance degradations.
I don't think that's the case, people don't call mobile internet "WiFi". In their minds "WiFi" probably means "home internet", so it's more like they call LAN "WiFi", because they have never used cable connection.
I didn't even consider that the newest iPhones can connect to satellites directly.
Although I really think it is just used to mean “non-phone based internet”, rather than just home 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.
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 fun considering how easy it was.
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.
If a particular category is considered then yes, phones are the biggest chunk. But virtually every device these days comes with WiFi. So wifi is now the default method of connecting something.
Mostly because around here you can have 100GB over 5G for less than 10€ + they mostly don't use computers (a.k.a laptops) except for a) school (where they have free WiFi+Internet) and b) binge-watching the occasional Netflix (and then they use connection sharing)
Their first move upon setting up a new phone is to disable Bluetooth+WiFi to, uh, "save battery" (their cargo-cult answer, every single time)
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...
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.
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."
I was using computers before Wi-Fi and eventually bought a Wi-Fi router for use at home, so it's not that I've never experienced world without Wi-Fi.
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 =)