Wireless

From Free net encyclopedia

Wireless is an old-fashioned term for a radio receiver, referring to its use as a wireless telegraph; now the term is used to describe modern wireless connections such as in cellular networks and wireless broadband Internet.

1 History
2 Modern usage
3 Wireless standards
4 See also
5 External articles

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History

The founding principles and inventions of wireless technology can be found in the lectures and patent record of the electrical engineer Nikola Tesla (and in his 1916 deposition on the history of wireless and radio technology). It was also later pioneered by Jagdish Chandra Bose and Guglielmo Marconi. A wireless set was the radio receiver, referring to its use as a wireless telecommunication station. The term "wireless" was widely used in the UK and Ireland, long after radio was being used for other signals, such as music.

The British phrase "wireless telegraphy" is one of those which, like aerodrome, was effortlessly transferrable between British and French forces during WWI, but which couldn't quite make it across the Atlantic to become fully accepted into American English. The French equivalent was télégraphie sans fil, which word-for-word translates as "telegraphy without wire." The British abbreviation, used by the military, was W/T. (When voice became transmittable over radio waves, the phrase used in the same era was "radio telephony," whose British abbreviation was R/T.)

For more on the history of radio transmission, please see Radio: Invention and history.

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Modern usage

In modern usage, wireless is a method of communication that uses low-powered radio waves to transmit data between devices. The term refers to communication without cables or cords, chiefly using radio frequency and infrared waves. Common uses include the various communications defined by the IrDA and the wireless networking of computers.

Low-powered radio waves, such as those used in networking to transmit data between devices, are often unregulated. High powered transmission sources usually require government licenses to broadcast on a specific wavelength.

This platform has historically carried voice and has grown into a large industry, carrying many thousands of broadcasts around the world. Radio waves are now increasingly being used by unregulated computer users. Optimal bandwidth routing within wireless networks requires the calculation in real-time of the best way to direct traffic.

Software and hardware developers are creating smaller computer networks which form ad-hoc wireless network, with protocols such as WiFi and ZigBee. The IEEE 802.11 standard is for wireless, Ethernet-like LANs. The insecurities in this protocol have popularized the concept of war driving.