"Anything that needs communications or control will be wirelessly connected."
Vie Hayes
Today's wireless networks owe much to one of the earliest computer networks, the University of Hawaii's ALOHAnet. This radio-based system, created in 1970, had many of the basic principles still in use today. Early wireless networks were expensive, however, and their equipment was bulky. They were used only in places where wired networks were awkward, such as across water or difficult terrain. It was not until the 1980s, with the arrival of cheaper, more portable equipment, that wireless networking began to go mainstream.
There was a problem, however. By the end of the 1980s several companies were selling wireless networking equipment, but it was all incompatible. What was needed was some joined-up thinking. Step forward the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and in particular Vie Hayes {b. 1941). Hayes did not invent any new technology, but he took charge of the IEEE's wireless standards committee, and fostered cooperation between the manufacturers. In 1996 they released the first standard wireless local area network (WLAN); its IEEE designation was "802.11."
Adopted in 1999 by a group of like-minded industrial leaders, who gave it the more catchy name of "Wireless-Fidelity," or Wi-Fi, the standard lets us take our laptops around the world, confident that, without wires, we will be able to browse the Web anywhere, from an airport in Australia to a zoo in Zanzibar.
