[Make-wifi-fast] 20 year anniversary of wifi

Fri Sep 27 17:15:27 EDT 2019

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing this information. I find it interesting.

Bob

On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 6:14 PM David P. Reed <dpreed at deepplum.com> wrote:

> A small correction/enhancement to the note from Teresa Meng. Maybe it is
> because I'm much older than her.
>
> The U-NII band opening up in 1997 was NOT the first move by the USG to
> create open communications. The first move was the creation of enhancements
> to Part 15, and the allowance of spread-spectrum modes (FHSS and DSSS) on
> 2.4 GHz ISM band under Part 15.
>
> The core person involved in that Part 15 expansion was Dr. Michael Marcus
> (a good friend of mine) who at the time worked for the FCC in its Office of
> Engineering and Technology. (his website is here
> http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/).
>
> Dr. Meng was not around at the time, so I'm not surprised she isn't aware
> of the history before she became involved in her work.  FHSS and DSSS modes
> didn't require the advanced digital modulation mechanisms she refers to,
> which enabled OFDM (OFDM requires the fourier transform, which can only
> practically be done algorithmically).
>
> The U-NII band (5 GHz) was the result of major efforts, led mostly on the
> political side by Apple Computer Inc. and in particular Jim Lovette, an
> engineer in Apple's advanced engineering, many years earlier, in 1990. Jim,
> along with others at Apple, and even with some support from Lotus, where I
> was VP and Chief Scientist, made the case that we needed much more open and
> freely usable spectrum than the 2.4 GHz and 900 Mhz spectrum that was
> already in use.  (
> https://books.google.com/books?id=GTwEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PT5&ots=CAM_c7p1qh&dq=Jim%20Lovette%20Apple%20radio&pg=PT5#v=onepage&q=Jim%20Lovette%20Apple%20radio&f=false
> )
>
> I knew many of the folks who built 802.11b (prior to U-NII band) and prior
> to the creation of the WiFi "cartel" who created the brand name WiFi. This
> is why I'm annoyed at the attempt to make 1999 its "birth". That's just
> false. It was NOT created by an industry cartel.
>
>
>
> On Thursday, September 26, 2019 6:32pm, "Dave Taht" <dave.taht at gmail.com>
> said:
>
> > Great article, bob, thx!
> >
> > People *wanted* wireless freedom. Everybody had a laptop and a modem,
> > and a pcmcia slot. One business model that lasted only briefly was
> > coffee shops renting pcmcia cards.....
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 12:10 PM Bob McMahon <bob.mcmahon at broadcom.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> For what it's worth, Teresa Meng (founder of Atheros) said in 2004
> >>
> >> https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=984469
> >>
> >> "TM: There are three basic ingredients in the technology. The first is
> definitely
> >> signal processing. In the past two decades a lot of research and
> industry
> >> achievements have made it possible for us to understand how to transmit
> signals
> >> through a wireless medium, based on sophisticated signal processing
> algorithms.
> >>
> >> Second, in the late ’90s, it became possible to implement gigahertz RF
> >> circuits using digital CMOS technology—the predominant technology that
> >> people have been using for implementing microprocessors and memory.
> >>
> >> The third ingredient is the opening up of the unlicensed band. Before
> 1997, for
> >> example, a carrier would have to pay a lot of money—in the
> billion-dollar
> >> range—to the government to have the right to use a bandwidth of several
> >> megahertz for their cellphone service. In 1997, the U.S. government
> opened up the
> >> 5GHz UNII band that allows unlicensed users—everybody in the United
> >> States—to use up to 550 megahertz of bandwidth, as long as they follow
> the
> >> rules.
> >>
> >> With the availability of wide bandwidth and CMOS technology being
> advanced enough
> >> to process the bandwidth at this frequency, and with the signal
> processing
> >> know-how—all this created what I call the “wireless revolution”
> >> that freed us from the previous notion that wireless communication is
> expensive,
> >> inherently constrained by a low data-rate, and is scarce. Bandwidth
> used to be a
> >> very scarce commodity, which is not true anymore with the opening up of
> >> unlicensed bands. This is the path Atheros would like to lead: to change
> >> people’s view of wireless service from tele-communication to more of a
> >> data-communication notion where equipment can be updated very quickly
> and
> >> inexpensively, and basically provide a level field for competition."
> >>
> >> Bob
> >>
> >> On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 1:33 PM David Lang <david at lang.hm> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I had some homerf devices, they were signficantly slower than 802.11b
> but they
> >>> were also far cheaper (they were ~$150 for a card where 802.11b were
> ~$800 each)
> >>>
> >>> a few years later the 'junk' vendors started producing 802.11b
> devices, the
> >>> prices dropped, and they caught on.
> >>>
> >>> David Lang
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, 16 Sep 2019, Dave Taht wrote:
> >>>
> >>> > Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2019 23:46:38 +0100
> >>> > From: Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com>
> >>> > To: Make-Wifi-fast <make-wifi-fast at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> >>> > Subject: [Make-wifi-fast] 20 year anniversary of wifi
> >>> >
> >>> > I remember experimenting with "homeRF". I cannot remember for the
> life
> >>> > of me what it was like.
> >>> >
> >>> > and to me, why wifi took off was that it had a strong investment by
> >>> > apple AND heavy interest from the geek community, with a couple
> >>> > drivers that actually worked, and because of the coffee shop
> >>> > phenomenon....
> >>> >
> >>> > Shure, everything else here was important, too:
> >>> >
> >>> > https://www.wired.com/story/how-wi-fi-almost-didnt-happen/
> >>> > --
> >>> >
> >>> > Dave Täht
> >>> > CTO, TekLibre, LLC
> >>> > http://www.teklibre.com
> >>> > Tel: 1-831-205-9740
> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >>> > Make-wifi-fast mailing list
> >>> > Make-wifi-fast at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>> >
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/make-wifi-fast_______________________________________________
> >>> Make-wifi-fast mailing list
> >>> Make-wifi-fast at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/make-wifi-fast
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Dave Täht
> > CTO, TekLibre, LLC
> > http://www.teklibre.com
> > Tel: 1-831-205-9740
> > _______________________________________________
> > Make-wifi-fast mailing list
> > Make-wifi-fast at lists.bufferbloat.net
> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/make-wifi-fast
>
>
>
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