To be sure, the sepia-toned hype of those days wasn’t all hot air. Guglielmo Marconi’s “magic box” and its contemporary inventions kicked off an era of profound changes, not the least of which was the advent of broadcasting. So it does seem strange that a century later the buzz once more is about wireless. And once again the commotion is justified. Because changes are afoot that are arguably as earth shattering as the first wireless transformation.
Certainly a huge part of this revolution comes from untethering the most powerful communication tools of our time. Between our mobile phones, our BlackBerrys and Treos and our Wi-Fi’d computers, we’re always on and always connected–and soon our cars and appliances will be too. While there’s been considerable planning as to how people will use these tools and how they’ll pay for them, the wonderful reality is that, as with the Internet, much of the action in the wireless world will ultimately emerge from the imaginative twists and turns that are possible when digital technology trumps the analog mind-set of telecom companies and government regulators.
Wi-Fi is a shining example of how wireless innovation can itself shed the constricting cables of conventional wisdom. At one point it was assumed that when people wanted to use wireless devices for things other than conversation, they’d have to rely on the painstakingly drawn, investment-heavy standards adopted by the giant corporations that rake in the dough through your monthly phone bill. But then some geeks came up with a new communications standard exploiting an unlicensed part of the spectrum (which the wonks at the FCC called “junk band,” stuff designated for techno-flotsam like microwave ovens and cordless phones). It was called 802.11 and only later sexed up with the Wi-Fi moniker.
Though the range of signal was usually no more than a few hundred feet or less, Wi-Fi turned out to be a great way to wirelessly extend an Internet connection in the home or office. A new class of activist was born: the bandwidth liberator, with a goal of extending free wireless Internet to anyone venturing within the range of a gratis hotspot. Meanwhile, Apple Computer seized on the idea as a consumer solution, others followed and now Wi-Fi is as common as the modem once was.
Another unplanned bonus: more powerful variants of Wi-Fi, with exotic descriptors like WiMax or mesh networks, have now emerged as top contenders to finally hook up the recalcitrant or remote areas that have so far resisted broadband. As Kevin Werbach, former FCC counsel for new technology policy, notes, because “it’s low cost and doesn’t require a big upfront infrastructure investment,” wireless technology is the means by which previously unwired chunks of civilization will get plugged in to the cyberaction. Consider the MIT Media Lab project to install Wi-Fi base stations on intervillage buses in India: when the vehicles stop to pick up passengers, computer users within range can use the signal to download files or send e-mail.
Wi-Fi is only one of dozens of variants of wireless in this spiraling movement. You might know GPS and satellite radio, Bluetooth and RFID, but do you know ZigBee? Got you there. (It’s a way to network lots of appliances.) The important thing to remember is that as these methods pile up, the result is less and less about losing the wire and more and more about making way for activities that were previously unimaginable.
When you install cameras in telephones, for instance, photography shifts from a producer of flat illustrative artifact into a means of communication. The ease of distribution becomes a force in itself, pushing networks to handle more bandwidth. And the sudden addition of hundreds of millions of instant eyes to the global network provides its own challenges (thus the devices are banned in locker rooms and at the U.S. Supreme Court).
All over the planet, wireless is making waves, from the text-message-mad teenagers outside Tokyo’s Shibuya station to a Wi-Fi-equipped McDonald’s in New York City to Everest climbers calling home from the summit. With dizzying rapidity, wireless innovations move from the cutting edge to the routine. Just like what happened with Marconi’s magic box during the first wireless revolution.
