Built with intentions to help guide torpedos undetected during WWII, FHSS or Frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology was one of the most important developments of the 1940s. Allowing signals to reach their destination by rapidly switching, or “hopping” across multiple frequencies to avoid interception.
The technology behind this was invented and patented by Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr whose involvement would go largely unnoticed. Yet FHSS technology is still used within Bluetooth and our very own WiFi connections today. Theoretically debated and built over decades, WiFi is what makes our wireless internet connections possible today, but there’s nothing really new about the ideas behind it. Even before Hedy Lamarr’s groundbreaking work on FHSS tech, history’s favorite “mad scientist” Nikola Tesla described wireless connections and communication made possible by devices that “a man will be able to carry in his vest pocket,” in the 1920s. By the 1970s, the earliest known useable wireless networks began; ALOHAnet developed by Norman Abramson at the University of Hawaii was the first network to use radio and random access protocols to allow computers to send and receive data as soon as it became available.
It wasn’t until the early 1990s and rapid development of the Internet and WiFi capabilities really began. The creation of the first large scale wireless network at Carnegie Mellon in 1993 gave way to the Wi-Fi trademark itself in 1999 and in the decades since then, our wireless connections have become more and more powerful. As IoT devices and the connectivity quality they demand keeps expanding, what’s coming next for WiFi? See this infographic for more.
Infographic Source: https://www.netgear.com/landings/history-of-wifi/
