Free «Wireless Technology Then and Now» Essay Sample

Ever since communication became the essential thing to the human nature, many inventions have been invented globally to ease the means of communication. One of those inventions is the wireless technology. Wireless technology is known to be the communication through the use of antenna, the ether and the ground. People use it to solve problems especially businesses and to create advantages over the competitors. It has been of beneficiary when it comes to sharing of data or information and resources through a wide range of the radio frequencies. Augments networks can be set without the installation or movement of the wires from one place to another. Furthermore, devices such as computing devices which includes desktops, workstations, monitors, keyboards, notebooks, tablets, handhelds, and printers can be equipped to communicate wirelessly (Freewimaxinfo, 2011). This is because they offer productivity, convenience, and cost advantages over traditional wired networks.

It all began on February 1896, when Guglielmo Marcon made his journey from Italy to England so as to demonstrate the British telegraph authorities what he had developed in the way of an operational wireless telegraph apparatus. This gave him his first British patent application on June 2 on the same year. His consideration for the wireless technology was for the benefit not for the merchants, the shipping industry and warships but for the consideration of those people who lived in those isolated areas around the world. Marcon saw that it was very important for the wireless technology to be the means of communication between the outlying islands and also for the ordinary purposes of telegraphic communication between the villages and towns. His focus was on the colonies in those newly developed countries. Today, most of the people have uttered similar things concerning the Internet. Nevertheless, it is believed by many people that the Internet will match the extensive reach and accessibility of radio with wireless technology developments in the near future (Todd & Andrew, 2010).

Malcon never gave up on his discovery, he continued exploring his discovery until on February 1902, while he was busy sending a signal from Poldhu to a receiver in SS Philadelphia, he discovered that daylight had a detrimental effect when it came to the electrical waves as compared during the night. To him, he said, "for short periods, at sunrise and sunset, and occasionally at other times, a shorter wave can be detected across the Atlantic in preference to the longer wave normally employed." here, what he meant is that the beneficiaries of this wireless technology in terms of long-range communication were the shortwave listeners around the globe due to the experiments and wireless technologies developed by him.

To complement his own work, Marcon during his Nobel Lecture, he was quoted describing his work by saying, "After a few preliminary experiments with Hertzian waves I became very soon convinced, that if these waves or similar waves could be reliably transmitted and received over considerable distances a new system of communication would become available possessing enormous advantages over flashlights and optical methods, which are so much dependent for their success on the clearness of the atmosphere." by mentioning the word flashlights, Malcon meant those flashing indicator lights which are normally used in lighthouses and on ships (Mathias, 2004).

Ever since his discovery, 200 years down the line to date, Malcon, the radio pioneer as he is known, he is congratulated and his work embraced by improvising the wireless technology to fit the new market due to his creativity of wireless transmission and light communication. However, some of the people who have contributed to such work are Edwin Armstrong who came up with the idea of FM radio, Lee De Forest who invented the electron tube and Andrew Viterbi who came up with digital decoding and CDMA and many more inventors. As compared to the computer industry which has encountered many challenges that is from the pains of maturity, wireless technologies has not yet shown any sign that is likely to affect it that big apart from a few such as the interference of frequencies to a number of household appliances and commercial machinery. This is because of the earlier unlicensed frequency channels. However, of late, this problem has been resolved.

One of the biggest wireless technologies ever to be presented about 40 years ago was the invention of the satellite which was put into the orbit. This satellite was to make the possibility of the wireless technology to spread everywhere even though it was a link in along chain of inventions. This has been a success ever since with the mobile cellular telephones, security systems, Wi-Fi, wireless energy transfer and computer interfaces being one of the beneficiaries.

Nowadays, wireless technology has become very common and affordable and easy to use everywhere. From the home users, most organizations that are from the businesses, industries to a city government are all benefiting from adopting this wireless technology. People use it because of the features it posses (Dubendorf, 2003). This salient features are such as speed, security, mobility and Wi-Fi hotspot. Things such as VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) do need wireless technologies for them to be functional. This has been able to satisfy every need of those who embrace it.

In 1990, the Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers decided to work on an 802 standards. These standards were meant for the wireless networking technology. They were meant to compliment many of the IEEE’s which existed before which were 802 networking standards. Their main target was the frequency range of in the 2.4 and 5GHz. come 1997, another innovation of standard for wireless LAN which was 802.11 came up. This was because the earlier version permitted only 1 to 2MB per seconds. This improvement brought a lot of changes when it came to signal strength. This standard also was beneficial because of its cost of implementation and the use of 2.4 GHZ radio frequency. It was a great improvement from the 2MB to the 11MB of data transfer per second.

With the current technology in place which is impressive there is need for this wireless technology to focus on the future. Since of late we have the 802.11n in place, one need to understand that with these standards in place, it has been able to provide a throughput in excess of 100Mbps with a limitation of 200Mbps. The advantage of this throughput is to utilize multiple antennas when it comes to transmission of multiple signals across the range of the signal frequencies (Mock, 2005). The reason for this standard is to take the place of the previous IEEE wireless standards. As much as this standard is yet to be implemented, a “pre-N” has been released by these manufacturers of these standards to focus also on the future. Another standard the IEEE has been focusing on is the 802.16 which is known as WiMax. WiMax is meant to provide wireless internet and networking across a substantial geographic area. With all this, it means the wireless technology is in the process of taking over the broadcast technology.

In conclusion, decades have passed since the invasion of the wireless technology. No one knew that it will grow to be a big thing that was meant to replace wired internet and communication infrastructure globally. People have become innovative ever since hence making sure that the wired technology is replaced currently and the near future. What has changed all this is the satellites and WiMAX which has been able to embrace the wireless technology and making it become more popular globally. A good observer can be able to see a bright future for the wireless technology since people are being more creative and innovative.