It’s been a quarter-century since the IEEE
introduced the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard. Since then, speeds have increased, and wireless internet has changed the world. Here’s a look back.
In the world before Wi-Fi,
internet access and local networking were mostly limited to wired connections. Any device connected to a network needed a cable attached to it—usually either a telephone or
Ethernet cable—which dramatically limited the portability of network-connected machines. That began to change in June 1997 when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) introduced the
first Wi–Fi standard.
The idea of wireless computer networking originated
in the late 1960s, but it was not until the 1980s that the technology became feasible for commercial applications with mobile digital networks such as
CDPD and
Mobitex. But they were expensive and used mostly by public safety services.
In 1990, NCR Corporation and AT&T began developing the first commercial wireless LAN product, called
WaveLAN, which was a precursor to the later
802.11 wireless networking
standard.
In 1997, an IEEE working group designed the 802.11 standard, which supported data rates up to 2 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band. Since “IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence” was a mouthful, a brand-consulting firm called Interbrand developed the trademark “Wi-Fi.” Wi-Fi is ostensibly short for “Wireless Fidelity,” which is wordplay related to the “Hi-Fi” and “
High Fidelity” terms once used with home stereo systems. Industry firms founded the non-profit
Wi-Fi Alliance in 1999, which manages the Wi-Fi standard and trademark today.
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