IEEE802.

11
(Wi-Fi)

What is a life without Wi-Fi? Some people even spends $2 for a Starbucks beverage so they can
use its free Wi-Fi. In this era, we can say that Wi-Fi is a daily need, in order to get a faster and easier
access through the internet without using a mobile data that keeps making our money decreasing every
month. We can say that the invention of Wi-Fi is a great contribution for the world, especially in this era.
People are using technology for almost everything and most of the software needs to use up some
internet to access it. No wonder that it became a really good contribution for the world and people keep
looking forward for the next developments of it.

Wi-Fi was already been around since 1971 but with another name. The Australian radio-
astronomer, Dr. John O’ Sullivan with his colleagues made a development of a key patent used in Wi- Fi
as a by-product of a CSIRO research product that lead to the creation of IEEE802.11. It refers to a set of
standards that define communication for wireless local are networks (WLAN’s) and by that, the basic
specification for wi-fi was established. It allows two megabytes per second of data transfer wirelessly
between devices which sparked a development in prototype routers to comply with IEEE802.11. Wi-Fi
was finally introduced on September 21, 1998 in Netherlands, led by an Australian Engineer, Dr. John
O’Sullivan.

The first prototype version was released in 1997, and provided up to 2 Mbit/s link speeds and
was updated in 1999 to permit 11 Mbit/s link speeds, and this proved popular. Also in the year of 1999,
the Wi-Fi alliance formed as a trade association to hold the Wi-Fi trademark under which most products
are sold.

Wi-Fi uses a large number of patents held by many different organizations. This led to Australia
labelling it as an Australian invention, despite it has been the subject of some controversy. In 2016, the
wireless local area networ Test Bed was chosen as Australia’s contribution to the exhibition A history of
the World in 100 Objects held in the National Museum of Australia.

Wi-Fi is still developing until this moment as they keep increasing the link speed again and again
due to the world growth. It can be accessed through a lot of devices we use nowadays such as laptops,
smartphones, and tablets, smart TVs, printers, digital audio players, digital cameras, car, aand drones.
Seeing from my daily use of Wi-Fi, since family installed a home Wi-Fi. With it we can access the internet
easily and it helps me every time I need either a reference or something that I want to know, it also can
entertain because most device game either laptop or phone uses internet to use it. Wi-Fi just have a
great impact in my life, well not only me but also a lot of people in the world.

Jessenia Pricilla Setiawan

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