Wi-Fi 20th Anniversary (Part 1)
By Prabhu Loganathan, Senior Marketing Director, Wireless Connectivity Business Unit, Marvell
Although you can’t see, touch or hear it, Wi-Fi® has had a huge impact on modern society and will continue to do so. From home wireless networks to offices and public places, high-speed connections are everywhere and do not rely on various wires, which has completely changed the way information is processed. It is no exaggeration to say that it is precisely because of the ability to connect to Wi-Fi anytime and anywhere that we can live a better life: the way we use laptops, tablets, and portable electronic devices has become more direct, simple, and more mobile, and there is no need to worry about various complicated data cables .
It’s hard to believe that it’s been twenty years since the IEEE® ratified the original 802.11 standard. For the first time in a related blog series, we’ll look back at the history of Wi-Fi and how it overcame numerous technical challenges to become the ultra-fast and incredibly convenient wireless standard we know today. Then we’ll discuss the future of Wi-Fi.
Unauthorized start
We now think of 802.11 wireless technology as connecting our personal computing devices and smartphones to the Internet, but the technology was actually originally developed to connect the humble cash register. NCR Corporation, a manufacturer of retail hardware and point-of-sale (PoS) computer systems, had a big problem in the late 1980s. NCR's customers (department stores and supermarkets) didn't want to cut grooves in the floor every time they changed the layout of their stores.
Recent FCC rules that opened up certain spectrum bands for free use have led to a disruptive concept: Using wireless connections in unlicensed spectrum (rather than traditional wired connections) could allow retailers to easily move electronic cash registers and Point of Sale systems without having to renovate stores.
Soon after, NCR assigned the project to an engineering team at its Netherlands subsidiary. The challenge for the team was to create a wireless communications protocol. These engineers successfully developed "Wireless LAN," the predecessor to Wi-Fi. Rather than keep this development as a proprietary protocol, NCR realized that by turning it into a standard, it could become a leader in the emerging wireless connectivity market. In 1990, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group was formed based on wireless communications in the unlicensed spectrum.
By using the then-innovative spread spectrum technology to reduce interference and improve signal integrity in noisy environments, the initial incarnation of Wi-Fi was finally standardized in 1997. The data rate at that time was only 2 Mb/s, but it also paved the way for later developments.
Wireless Ethernet
Although the 802.11 wireless standard was released in 1997, it was not an immediate success. For a long time, slow network speeds and expensive hardware limited the huge market appeal of wireless Ethernet, but everything would change. At the time, the networking standard for Ethernet was 10 Mb/s. The IEEE 802.11 working group knew that if this standard could be achieved, wireless Ethernet would become a strong competitor to Ethernet. In 1999, they successfully developed 802.11b.
802.11b used the same 2.4GHz ISM band as the original 802.11 wireless standard
, but it greatly increased the supported data rate
to 11 Mb/s
. Wireless Ethernet was finally a reality.
Soon after 802.11b was introduced, an IEEE working group released a faster standard, 802.11a . Rather than using the increasingly crowded 2.4 GHz band, this standard used the 5 GHz band and offered speeds of up to 54 Mb/s .
802.11a performs better in noisy environments by using the 5 GHz band, avoiding the mainstream (and therefore crowded) 2.4 GHz band; however, the high carrier frequency also means a reduced range compared to 2.4 GHz wireless connections. 802.11b is currently the most popular wireless standard due to its cheaper equipment and longer nominal range. Although 802.11b is more cost-effective than 802.11a, its price is still higher than the average consumer can afford. Routers and network adapters still cost hundreds of dollars.
A phone call from Steve Jobs changed everything. Apple was launching a new line of computers and wanted to include wireless networking as one of its built-in features. Apple's conditions were very tough: it had to get a network card at a price of $99, and of course, the potential demand was also huge. Lucent Technologies, which had acquired NCR at the time, agreed.
It was always difficult at first, but Apple eventually brought Wi-Fi to consumers and made it mainstream. PC manufacturers saw Apple's lead and wanted to develop wireless networks, too. Soon, major PC hardware manufacturers such as Dell, Toshiba, HP, and IBM all began offering Wi-Fi.
Microsoft then decided to bring Wi-Fi to Windows XP. Microsoft worked with Lucent engineers to build Wi-Fi connectivity into the operating system . Users did not need to install third-party drivers or software to connect wirelessly. With the release of Windows XP, millions of computers around the world now support Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi has become a huge success.
This is the first blog in a series of articles about the long history of Wi-Fi. The second blog will introduce the latest developments and current applications of Wi-Fi .
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