The History of Wifi

1896 - World population is ~1.6 billion people. AT&T has about 500,000 telephones in the
Bell System. Guglielmo Marconi develops the first wireless telegraph system, establishing
the foundation for all future radio technology.

1947 - World population is now ~2.6 billion. Most homes dont yet have television, but the
first ever mass audience of ~ 3.9 million people crowd into taverns to watch the first
televised World Series. The merger of computers and communications is born with the
invention of the transistor. Bell Labs scientists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
Shockley win the 1956 Nobel Prize for this epic invention.

1969- Over 125 million people tune in to watch the Apollo 11 Moon Landing mostly in
black and white. Arpanet, the first workable prototype of the Internet, is launched. It uses
packet switching to allow multiple computers to communicate on a single network.

1990 - 12.5 million cell phone subscribers worldwide. Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee,
with the help of Robert Cailliau, completes the first successful communication between a
computer and a server, a critical step in the development of the World Wide Web.

1997 2000 - World population has reached ~6 billion people. 140.2 million personal
computers are sold worldwide; more than half of US households now have a PC. A
committee, made up of engineers from NCR Corporation, Bell Labs, and IEEE agree on an
industrywide wireless standard; a datatransfer rate of two megabits per second, using
either of two spreadspectrum technologies, frequency hopping or directsequence
transmission. 802.11a and 802.11b, (Max 11 Mbps) are released, and a big explosion in
wireless capabilities occurs. In 1999, IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence is renamed Wi-Fi
by cobrand-consulting firm Interbrand Corporation. Lucent develops a Wi-Fi adapter for
under $100, and Apple introduces Wi-Fi on the iBook, under the brand name AirPort.

2003 2007- The number of mobile-phone users in the U.S. surpasses the number of
conventional land-based phone lines. Steve Jobs unveils the very first iPhone, a Wi-Fi
dependent computer that happened to make phone calls. 802.11g 802.11e and 802.11n are
released (with 802.11n topping out at Max 600 Mbps).

2009 2015 - Starbucks announces free Wi-Fi at all their shops. Mobile digital media time
in the US is now significantly higher at 51% compared to desktop (42%). Social media plays
a major role in The Arab Spring. Barrack Obama@POTUS sends his first Tweet. And the
number of mobile devices now outnumbers humans. 802.11v, 802.11k, 802.11u, 802.11acI,
and 802.11acII are all released. (With 802.11acII topping out at Max 6.93 Gbps).