To be sure, the sepia-toned hype of those days wasn’t all hot air. Marconi’s “magic box” and its contemporaneous 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 how wireless will change everything. And once again, the commotion is justified. Changes are afoot that are arguably as earth shattering as the world’s 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 BlackBerries and Treos, and our Wi-Fi’d computers, we’re always on and always connected–and soon our cars and our appliances will be, too. While there has been considerable planning for 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 itself a shining example of how wireless innovation can shed the tethers 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 (the wonks at the U. S. Federal Communications Commission called it “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 only some dozens of meters, 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. (New York activist Yury Gitman has even created a bicycle that doubles as a 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 Wi-Max or mesh networks, have emerged as contenders to finally hook up recalcitrant or remote areas that have so far resisted broadband. Pioneers are bringing wireless to places as distant as Pirai, Brazil, and Colorado Springs. 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 plug into the cyberaction. Consider the MIT 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 wireless variants in this new revolution. You might know GPS and satellite radio, Bluetooth and RFID, but do you know ZigBee? Got you there. (It’s a means of networking 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 previously unimaginable activities.
When you install cameras in telephones, for instance, photography shifts from the production 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 the Supreme Court).
All over the planet, wireless is making waves, from the text-message-mad teenagers at Tokyo’s Shibuya Station to a Wi-Fi-equipped McDonald’s to Everest climbers calling home from the summit. With dizzying rapidity, wireless innovations are moving from the cutting edge to the routine. Just like what happened with Marconi’s magic box during the first wireless revolution.
