essay about wireless internet

Evolution and Impact of Wi-Fi Technology and Applications: A Historical Perspective

• Published: 19 November 2020
• Volume 28 , pages 3–19, ( 2021 )

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• Kaveh Pahlavan 1 &
• Prashant Krishnamurthy 2  

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The IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless local area networking (WLAN), commercially known as Wi-Fi, has become a necessity in our day-to-day life. Over a billion Wi-Fi access points connect close to hundred billion of IoT devices, smart phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart TVs, video cameras, monitors, printers, and other consumer devices to the Internet to enable millions of applications to reach everyone, everywhere. The evolution of Wi-Fi technology also resulted in the first commercial piloting of spread spectrum, high speed optical communications, OFDM, MIMO and mmWave pulse transmission technologies, which then became more broadly adopted by cellular phone and wireless sensor networking industries. The popularity and widespread Wi-Fi deployment in indoor areas further motivated innovation in opportunistic cyberspace applications that exploit the ubiquitous Wi-Fi signals. The RF signal radiated from Wi-Fi access points creates an “RF cloud” accessible to any Wi-Fi equipped device hosting or supporting these opportunistic applications. Wi-Fi positioning and location intelligence were the first popular opportunistic applications of Wi-Fi’s RF cloud. Today, researchers are investigating opportunistic applications of Wi-Fi signals for gesture and motion detection as well as authentication and security. This paper provides a holistic overview of the evolution of Wi-Fi technology and its applications as the authors experienced it in the last few decades.

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1 Introduction

In the last few decades, as we were witnessing the emergence of the “information age” and the third industrial revolution, wireless access and localization played an undisputable role by enabling millions of innovative and popular cyberspace applications to connect to the Internet by anyone, anywhere Footnote 1 . These cyberspace applications have had and continue to make a fundamental impact on the way we live, conduct business, shop, access news media, deliver education, transport, care for health, and interact with the world. Today, smart phones, tablets and laptops use wireless technology to support untethered access to information, which is the most essential part of the way we live and work. Footnote 2 Smart cities monitor the environment and cyberspace intelligence is helping us as a society to optimize the way our intelligence contributes to the collective intelligence of humanity, to optimize the efficiency of consuming resources while sustaining life on the earth. The backbone of this third industrial revolution has been the computer and communication industry. The exponential growth in computational speed and the size of memory for information processing and storage has enabled implementation of numerous cyberspace applications that at the same time demand high speed communications and networking of devices, especially with tetherless connections to easily reach the numerous types of consumer devices emerging with the growth of the microelectronics industry at a reasonable cost. Wireless technologies have played an extremely important role in enabling this revolution to take place and to facilitate the access and intelligent processing of information to anyone, anytime, and anywhere.

At the time of this writing we have two different wireless data interfaces to connect a smartphone to the Internet, IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks, commercially known as Wi-Fi, and cellular mobile data networks. Wi-Fi is the primary choice for smartphones because it can provide a higher data rate and more reliable indoor connections at a lower cost - users typically resort to cellular networks as a second choice. Researchers in next generations of cellular industry believe that as the cellular data rates and cellular costs goes down, the balance may shift to cellular networks because it is available everywhere. However, as of today Wi-Fi is the fastest and most cost-effective way of wireless Internet connectivity, especially in large parts of the world where broadband wired connectivity exists, but the latest 5G cellular technology does not. In addition to smartphones, many other devices like home entertainment systems, environmental monitoring sensors, and security systems connect to the Internet with Wi-Fi, but not necessarily through cellular networks. Wi-Fi brings people, processes, data, and devices, together and turns data into valuable information that makes life better and business thrive [ 1 ]. Some companies engaged in Wi-Fi related business resort to artistic illustrations similar to Fig.  1 (adapted from [ 2 , 3 ]) to relate Wi-Fi to human basic needs using Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs [ 4 ], with an additional lowest layer called Wi-Fi. Usually, Maslow’s hierarchy is shown as a pyramid, but to illustrate the crucial importance of Wi-Fi, in Fig.  1 the hierarchy is shown using the inverted version of the common symbol for Wi-Fi signal strength with Wi-Fi as the “most basic” of human needs.

adapted from [ 2 , 3 ]

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs with an additional layer referring to Wi-Fi as enabler of these needs

Innovations after the first and second industrial revolution, such as the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, electricity, the telegraph and the telephone, radio, television, airplane, and rockets, had profound impacts on the way we live and have affected many other industries (such as entertainment). However, the Internet, the fruit of the third industrial revolution, enabling the emergence of the “information age”, has had a wider impact on our daily lives. The Internet provides access to unlimited amounts of information in an almost instant manner, anywhere, and that is further enhanced by wireless technologies by allowing devices to be anywhere. Indeed, Wi-Fi is the most popular of the wireless technologies to connect the devices and carry the internet protocol (IP) traffic.

As mentioned above, Wi-Fi is one of two primary wireless technologies that carries IP traffic. The IP traffic includes text, voice, images, and videos that comprises the communication needs in our daily lives and it is a good measure of information exchange on the Internet. A reliable source for measurement and prediction of IP traffic is the Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast [ 5 ]. Figure  2 , adapted from this source, shows the breakdown of this data from Mobile, Wi-Fi and Fixed access in different years. We use their prediction of traffic in 2022 as a measure to demonstrate the role of Wi-Fi in handling IP traffic. The traffic is divided into wireless (Wi-Fi and cellular mobile) and wired (Ethernet) with wireless carrying 70.6% and wired carrying 29.4%. Because of its flexibility of connection, being available anywhere, wireless traffic is more than twice the wired traffic. Fixed devices generate 58% of the traffic and mobile devices generate 42%. Wi-Fi carries 22.9% of the traffic from mobile devices (that also have a cellular connection) and 28.1% of traffic from Wi-Fi only devices for a total 51% of the entire traffic. This means that by the year 2022, Wi-Fi may carry the majority of IP global traffic soaring to reach the unbelievable high value of zettabytes (10 21 bytes). The reason for the success of Wi-Fi over wired Ethernet, carrying 29.2% of the traffic, is Wi-Fi’s connection flexibility, and the reason for success over cellular, carrying 19.6% of traffic, is Wi-Fi’s higher speed and less expensive connection cost. We use these numbers as a proxy metric to now explain why we need Wi-Fi. This discussion clarifies our “artistic expression” in the beginning of this section, about the impact of Wi-Fi in our daily needs, in a broader context with historical and projected usage numbers.

adapted from [ 5 ]

Approximate global monthly IP traffic for different Internet access methods in 2017 and 2022 (note Exabyte is 10 18 bytes); Data

In this brief introduction we provided our view on the importance and impact of Wi-Fi technology. In the remainder of this paper we provide a holistic overview of the evolution of Wi-Fi technology and its applications. This is a huge area and it is very difficult to write a paper that includes every aspect of its history. As members of a pioneering research center in this field [ 6 ], we provide a historical perspective of evolution of Wi-Fi in the way that we experienced it in the past few decades (and the paper is driven by this personal lens). We approach this challenging task from three angles. First, how the physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) for wireless communications with Wi-Fi technology evolved and what were the novel wireless transmission technologies that were introduced in this endeavor. Second, how Wi-Fi positioning emerged as the most popular positioning technology in indoor and urban areas and how it has impacted our daily lives. Third, how other cyberspace applications, such as motion and gesture detection as well as authentication and security, are emerging to revolutionize human computer interfacing with the RF cloud of Wi-Fi devices.

2 Evolution of Wi-Fi Communications Technology

In this section we first discuss the origins of the PHY and MAC layer technologies for Wi-Fi by separating their origins into three eras: (i) prior to 1985, when the pioneering technologies for WLAN were invented, (ii) during the period 1985–1997, when IEEE 802.11 and Wi-Fi technology became IEEE standards and finally, (iii) from 1997 to the present, when orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technologies enabled Wi-Fi to enhance the supported data rates from 2 Mbps to Gbps. Then we discuss the evolution of the market and the applications of Wi-Fi that eventually emerged.

2.1 The Origin of WLAN Technologies Before 1985

Around the year 1980, IBM‘s Rueschlikon Laboratory, Zurich, Switzerland began research and development on using InfraRed (IR) technology to design WLANs for manufacturing floors [ 7 ]. At that time, wired local area networks (LAN)s were popular in office areas and large manufacturers such as General Motors (GM) were considering their use in computerized manufacturing floors. To wire the inside of offices, it was necessary to snake wires in walls and was easier with low-height suspended ceilings. In manufacturing floors, there are limited numbers of partitioning walls and moreover ceilings are high and made of hard material. Consequently, WLAN technology offered itself as a practical alternative for manufacturing floors. Around the same time frame, HP Palo Alto Laboratory, California, reported a prototype WLAN using direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) with surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices (for implementation of a matched filter at the receiver) [ 8 ]. HP Laboratories at that time had open space offices without partitioning by walls, which again created challenges for wiring through the walls. Dropping wires from the ceiling to desktops was not aesthetically pleasing. It was in this time that optical wireless and spread spectrum, combined with spread spectrum technology emerged, that could support huge amounts of capacity for indoor WLANs to connect desktops and printers together in a local network [ 9 , 10 ].

Prior to all this, Norm Abramson at University of Hawaii had designed the first experimental wireless data network, the ALOHA system [ 11 ]. The difference between the approach taken by IBM or HP and this approach was that ALOHA was an academic experimentation of wireless packet data networks with an antenna deployed outdoors with relatively low data rate modems at a speed of around 9600 bps. However, the concept had inspired low speed wireless data networking technologies such as Motorola’s ARDIS, and Ericsson’s Mobitex, (which we refer to as mobile data services now generally subsumed by cellular data services in 3G, 4G, and beyond). For WLAN technologies, the antenna is installed indoors, and the data rate needed to be at least 1 Mbps (at that time) to be considered by IEEE 802 standards organization community as a LAN [ 12 ]. The medium access control of both wireless data services was contention based, originally experimented in ALOHA, and later on evolving into carrier-sensing or listen before talk based contention access adopted by wired LANs by the IEEE 802.3 standard, commercially known as the Ethernet with some variation.

The main obstacle for commercial implementation of the early WLANs were interference and availability of a low cost wideband spectrum in which the WLAN could operate. Indoor optical WLANs did not need to consider regulation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and they could potentially provide extremely wide bandwidths. However, optical communications cannot penetrate walls or other obstacles and thus, the operation becomes restricted to open areas, which are often small inside buildings. Spread spectrum was an anti-interference technology, which at that time could potentially manage the interference problem allowing multiple users to share a wideband spectrum [ 9 , 10 , 13 ]. In the summer of 1985, Mike Marcus, the chief engineer at FCC at that time, released the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) bands with restrictions of having to use spread spectrum technology for interference management [ 14 ]. For WLANs to become a commercial product, there was need for large bandwidths (at that time) and modem technologies that could overcome the challenges of indoor RF multipath propagation to achieve data rates beyond 1 Mbps required to be considered by the IEEE 802 committee as a LAN. The ISM bands and spread spectrum technology could address both issues.

2.2 Evolution of WLAN Technologies and Standards Between 1985 and 1997

The summer of 1985 was a turning point in the entrepreneurship for implementation in the WLAN industry. The FCC had released the ISM bands for commercial implementation of low power spread spectrum technology in May [ 14 ]. The suitability of RF spread spectrum and IR for implementing wireless office information networks had captured the cover page of the IEEE Communication Magazine in June [ 10 ]. Suddenly, several startup companies and a few groups in large companies, almost exclusively in North America, emerged to begin developing WLANs using spread spectrum and infrared technologies. Infrared devices did not need FCC regulations because they operate above the 300 GHz frequency, the highest governed by this agency. Among the exceptions for locations of these companies, was a small group in NCR, Netherlands, which designed the first Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) technology to achieve 2 Mbps [ 15 , 16 ]. Other companies, such as Proxim, Mountain View, CA, resorted to Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS), and a third group led by Photonics, supported by Apple, resorted to an IR solution for WLANs. All three groups could achieve 2 Mbps. These three groups, originally started in the late 1980’s, laid the foundation for the first legacy IEEE 802.11 standards series, finalized in 1997. The final standard for DSSS and FHSS operated in the 2.4 GHz ISM bands. Other exceptions in technologies were efforts by Motorola, IL and WINDATA, Marlborough, MA. Motorola introduced a revolutionary WLAN technology operating in the 18 GHz licensed bands achieving 10 Mbps using a six sectored antenna configuration [ 17 , 18 ], and WINDATA, achieved 6 Mbps in a dual band mode with 2.4 GHz for uplink and 5.2 GHz for downlink. The work presented in [ 17 , 18 ] was the first time a wireless network was adopting frequencies in 18 GHz with directional antennas. We may refer to this work as the first attempt to use close to mmWave technology for modern wireless networking, which is now adopted by 5G cellular networks [ 19 ]. However, mmWaves cannot penetrate walls well, which restricts their coverage in indoor areas. This restriction is less of a concern in cellular networks with outdoor antenna deployments.

The first academic research in the physical layer of WLANs began at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA in Fall of 1985 [ 6 ]. The early academic research literature in this area began with the empirical modeling of the multipath radio propagation in indoor areas [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ], examining decision feedback equalization (DFE) [ 26 ], and M-ary orthogonal coding [ 27 ] to achieve data rates beyond the 2 Mbps rates studied by the IEEE 802.11, to achieve rates on the orders of 20 Mbps, and the integration of voice and data for WLAN [ 28 ]. A form of M-ary orthogonal signaling was adopted by IEEE802.11b standard, DFE was adopted by the Pan European HIgh PERformance LAN (HIPERLAN)-I standard, and a form of OFDM was implemented in HIPERLAN-2 and IEEE 802.11a standards. A breakthrough, patented in this era, was the application of OFDM to WLANs, first filed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Sydney, Australia [ 29 ]. The origins of equalization, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and OFDM transmission technologies were first implemented for commercial voice band communications [ 30 ]. The use of DFE was first adopted for wireless data communications over multipath troposcatter channels in military applications [ 31 ] and M-ary orthogonal coding was an extension to Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) to increase the capacity for military applications [ 32 ]. The novelty of these technologies in this later time was in their application in commercial WLANs in non-wired and non-military applications.

The IEEE group for WLAN standardization was first formed as IEEE 802.4L in 1998. The IEEE 802.4 group was devoted to Token Bus LANs for manufacturing environments and was on the verge of disbanding. The rationale for introducing WLANs in this group was that new IEEE standards usually begin in a closely related standard and after going through the establishment procedure, may form their own group and standard series. The IEEE 802.11 group was the same group from IEEE 802.4L formed later in July 1990 [ 33 ]. In the early days of this standard the important challenge was to find the correct direction for the future technology among a number of acceptable technologies. In 1991, the standards group participated in the first IEEE sponsored conference to address this issue [ 34 ]. The early IEEE standards for wired LANs were differentiating from each other through their MAC method. IEEE 802.11 was the first with three MAC mechanisms (that could work together) and three PHY layer methods. The legacy IEEE 802.11 standard was completed in 1997 with three PHY layer recommendations, DSSS and FHSS operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM bands and Diffused Infrared (DFIR) wireless optical options. All three PHY layer options operated at raw data rate options of 1 and 2 Mbps and employed three possibilities for the MAC: carrier sensing - CSMA, request and clear to send - RTS-CTS, and polling (point-coordination-function) - PCF. RTS/CTS and PCF were designed to operate in conjunction with the base CSMA with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA).

The HIPERLAN was another WLAN standardization activity, sponsored by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), which began its work in 1992. The HIPERLAN-1 standard was the first attempt to achieve data rates above 10Mbps using DFE technology and in the 5 GHz unlicensed bands [ 35 ]. This standard was also completed in 1997, but it failed in developing a market for itself. Another more popular but extensive standardization activity for wireless indoor networking in this era was Wireless Asynchronous Transfer Mode (W-ATM), which aimed to integrate local wireless traffic with an ATM backbone wired technology [ 36 , 37 ]. A comparison of this technology with Wi-Fi is available in [ 38 ].

In summary, it is fair to say that during the 1985–1997 era, the WLAN industry was in the process of discovering technologies for wideband indoor wireless communications and it examined spread spectrum, M-ary orthogonal coding, IR, licensed bands at 18 GHz with directional antennas, DFE, and OFDM technologies and the importance of the analysis of the effects of multipath and appropriate mitigation techniques to achieve higher data rates. The spread spectrum and Infrared technologies of the legacy IEEE 802.11 standard were the only technologies which survived in the market and a modified form of these technologies have remained in other popular standards such as Bluetooth, using FHSS and ZigBee using DSSS. M-ary orthogonal coding and OFDM appeared in later standards. This era also opened channels for dissemination of research and scholarship through publication channels. The first IEEE workshop on WLAN (1991), and the IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Communications (1992), hosted first panel discussions on the future of the WLAN industry in cooperation with the IEEE 802.11 standardization organization. The year 1994 marked the establishment of the first scientific journal, the International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, and the first scientific magazine related to this subject, IEEE Personal Communications, which later changed its name to IEEE Wireless Communications. The pioneering textbooks in Wireless Information Networks [ 39 ] and Wireless Communications [ 40 ] also emerged in this era.

2.3 Evolution of WLAN Technologies and Standards After 1997

The IEEE 802 standards define MAC and PHY specifications of local networks as standards for vendors to be able to interoperate. Figure  3 shows the evolution of the PHY and MAC layers of the IEEE 802.11 standards from the beginning to the present. The first step of evolution of the standard after completion of the legacy 802.11 standard in 1997, was the IEEE 802.11b standard that used complex M-Ary orthogonal coding known as Complementary Code Keying (CCK). The IEEE 802.11b standard was completed in 1999. Devices using this standard operated at speeds up to 11 Mbps with a fall back to 1–2 Mbps using the legacy 802.11 standard. Both IEEE 802.11b and the legacy IEEE 802.11 devices operated in the 2.4 GHz bands. In 1999, the IEEE standards body also completed specifications for IEEE 802.11a operating at 5.2 GHz using OFDM transmission technology to achieve data rates up to 54 Mbps. The IEEE 802.11a PHY layer was coordinated with the efforts in the HIPERLAN-2 standard in Europe [ 41 ]. In comparison with Wi-Fi, the centralized MAC of HIPERLAN-2 [ 42 ] was expected to allow better management of quality of service, vital to the cellular telephone industry. Perhaps that was the motivation of Ericsson to pursue the leadership of this effort. However, in a manner similar to wireless ATM, this standard did not achieve commercial success. This could be because in wide area networking we have large number of users with less bandwidth resources and rationing this scarce resource requires centralized supervision by enforcing quality of service rules. In local areas with abundant availability of bandwidth and only a few users, a distributed MAC would be more practical in that time frame. Although a new standard for integration of local and metropolitan area networks, such as HIPERLAN-2 or wireless ATM, did not became a reality, the need for this integration of cellular networks with Wi-Fi, became a reality. The concept of integration of Wi-Fi with cellular using vertical hand-offs and mobile IP technology emerged in the early days of commercial popularity of Wi-Fi [ 43 ] and it has prevailed all the way along up to the time of this writing but this time with operating system and software control. The continuation of the ideal of new standards for local operation continued into Femtocells [ 44 ] and long-term evolution-unlicensed (LTE-U) [ 45 ] – operation of 4G cellular networks in the unlicensed spectrum, but neither has created any serious challenge to the Wi-Fi market yet. In the same way that the WLAN industry in its early days of survival resorted to point-to-multipoint outdoor installation for wider area coverage, it can be thought that Wi-Max [ 46 ] emerged as a successful application of local area centralized medium access control technologies for outdoor antenna deployments. The wireless ATM, HIPERLAN, Femto-cell, LTE-U and Wi-MAX technologies created a significant hype in scientific publication venues and among national funding agencies, but they failed to keep investors in developing these technologies as happy as those that invested in Wi-Fi. Later, in 2003, the IEEE 802.11g working group defined OFDM operation in 2.4 GHz with the same data rates as IEEE 802.11a, which expanded the horizon for Wi-Fi market.

Evolution of Wi-Fi technologies and standards

The breakthrough in wireless communications at the turn of the twenty first century was the discovery of multiple antennae streaming benefitting from space time coding (STC) and MIMO technology. The foundation of multiple antenna streaming is based on two technologies: adaptive antenna arrays to focus the beam pattern of antennas and space time coding (STC) which is a coding technique enabling separation of multiple streams of data with coding. The benefits of multiple transmitting and receiving antennas existed in the antenna and propagation society literature since the 1930’s [ 47 ]. Seminal work on STC [ 48 , 49 , 50 ] enabled multiple streams of data and that is why it is considered as one of the most important worldwide innovations around the turn of the twenty first century. Multiple streams of data using MIMO technology in conjunction with OFDM and benefitting from STC opened a new horizon in scaling the physical layer transmission rates in multipath fading channels [ 51 ]. The next giant step in the evolution of technology for the IEEE 802.11 community was the introduction of IEEE 802.11n in 2009, using MIMO technology to enable multiple data streams to achieve raw data rates up to 600 Mbps both in the 2.4 and 5.2 GHz bands. Other standards such as IEEE 802.11ac and 802.11ax, followed the same OFDM/MIMO technology.

Another major hype in physical layer technologies for wireless communications was mmWave pulse transmission technology. The IEEE 802.11ad group adopted mmWave pulse transmission technology in the 60 GHz band with utra-wideband (UWB) transmission bandwidth exceeding 2 GHz to achieve data rates on the order of Gbps. Although mmWave technology became an important part of the 5G cellular networking industry [ 19 ], IEEE 802.11ad and 802.11ay, as the first completed standards using these technologies have not been successful in attracting a huge share of the WLAN market. As we explained earlier, mmWaves in indoor areas has coverage restriction that does not apply to outdoor antenna deployments.

Regarding the MAC of the IEEE 802.11, the main two techniques which became dominant were CSMA/CA and request/clear to send - RTS/CLS. Carrier sensing with collision avoidance—CSMA/CA was a practical extension to the wireless medium of CSMA/CD (collision detection), which was adopted for the IEEE 802.3 standard, commercially known as Ethernet. The IEEE 802.11 devices grew with the name “wireless Ethernet” and CSMA/CA would enable Ethernet to finally have a wireless extension. The RTS/CTS mechanism was originally designed to address the hidden terminal problem, but it became more popular for application with directional antennas for IEEE 802.11ac, ad. An analytical comparison of these two MAC techniques is a challenging problem that received a very thorough and popular analysis in the year 2000 [ 52 ].

A good survey of all these standards is presented at Wikipedia [ 53 ]. Here, we argue that all major PHY layer technologies evolved for wireless information networks: optical wireless, spread spectrum, M-ary orthogonal coding, OFDM, MIMO, and mmWave technologies were first adopted by the IEEE 802.11 standardization community. Then, DSSS and orthogonal signaling in 2G/3G, OFDM/MIMO in 4G, and mmWave in 5G/6G cellular telephone technologies, came after the adoption of these technologies in IEEE802.11 standards. The MAC of cellular telephone industry is centralized and different from that of WLANs, primarily to accommodate high traffic densities and support higher level of mobility for users with metropolitain area coverage. The IEEE 802.15 wireless personal area networks followed a similar pattern by adoption of FHSS for Bluetooth and DSSS for ZigBee, after they were first introduced by the IEEE 802.11 standard. The MAC of Bluetooth and in particular ZigBee carry similarities with those of the MAC of IEEE 802.11. Therefore, it is fair to say that the WLAN industry pioneered the design of the dominant PHY technologies of today’s wireless networking industry and this is a huge technological impact in the communication of humans, devices, and machines.

2.4 Evolution of Wi-Fi Applications and Market

Applications fuel the market, and they are intimately linked to the network through devices running these applications. Local area networks were networking computers to share common peripheral devices such as printers or storage memories and later machines in a manufacturing floor. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, when the WLAN industry began to test the market, Personal Computers (PC) and Workstations were competing to capture the market of mini-computers. Laptops became popular in this market a little later. From the networking point of view in that era, engineers were searching for wiring solutions for the growing market of these devices to connect them with minimal effort. The early WLAN startups were thinking of wireless as a replacement to wired LANs to connect PC’s in open areas such as manufacturing floors or open offices without partitions. These companies were assuming that these small computers will grow on office desks or on manufacturing areas in clusters. The idea was that if we connect this cluster of desktop computers to a hub and then we connect the hub to a central node connected to the Ethernet backbone, we will avoid snaking of wires or wires hanging from the ceilings of manufacturing floors and offices. In a typical startup proposal for venture capital, these companies were arguing that close to half of the cost of the LAN industry was associated with installation and maintenance of these networks, which can be vanishingly small when we use wireless technology. As a result, the first WLAN products were shoe box sized hubs and central units and following the above argument, these companies were estimating that a market of a few billion-dollars would emerge for these devices in early 1990’s. Based on this idea a typical startup company or a small group in a large company could raise up to $20 M at that time, adequate to support a design and marketing team to get the product going. Therefore, the early products from NCR, Proxim, Aironet, WINDATA, Motorola, NCR, Persoft, Photnics and others appeared in the market (see Fig.  4 a for samples of these products). The reader can find a variety of photos of these historical WLAN products in the proceedings of the first IEEE Workshop on WLAN [ 34 ]. This workshop was held in Worcester, MA, in parallel to the IEEE 802.11 official meeting to decide on the future of this industry. Around the year 1993 these products were in the market but the expected few billion-dollar market developed only to a few hundred million dollars. These sales were mostly for selected vertical applications and by research laboratories discovering the technology, not for the horizontal market for connecting desktop computers everywhere. This resulted in a retreat in the original few tens of companies, searching for a new market domain.

a Some historical pioneering shoe box size WLANS designed by Motorola, Persoft, Aironet, and WINDATA, b the wireless PC cards and its access points in Roamabout designed by Digital Equipment Corporation

During the market crash of 1993 for the WLAN industry designed for connecting clusters of desktop computers, two new applications emerged. The first solution was point-to-point or point-to-multipoint WLAN bridges. The idea was to allow WLANs to operate outdoors and add a strong roof top antenna to take advantage of free space propagation and antenna gains to extend the expected 100 m indoor coverage to outdoor coverage spanning a few miles. As examples of these markets, two hospitals in Worcester, MA, which were a few miles away could connect their networks with low cost private WLANs, instead of using expensive leased lines from telephone companies. Or, Worcester Polytechnic Institute could connect the dormitories to the local area network of the main campus. The other idea was to design smaller wireless PC Cards for the emerging laptop market. Figure  4 b shows the picture of the Roamabout access point box and the laptop wireless PC Cards of the first successful product of that type, designed at Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, MA. These devices were the showcase of the second IEEE Workshop on WLANs, October 1996 [ 54 ]. Examples of a practical market for laptop operation included large financing corporations such as Fidelity in Boston, who would purchase laptops for their marketing, sales, and other staff. Such companies wanted their staff to be connected to the corporate network, when in office.

The next wave of market demand for WLANs was for small office/ home office (SOHO) application, which began around 2000. The authors believe that this story began in the mid-1990 with the penetration of the Internet to homes with service providers like America online (AOL) for small indoor area distribution of signals. The penetration of the Internet in homes fueled the development of cable modems and digital subscriber line (DSL) modems for high data rate home services and with that came the growth in the number of home devices and demand for Home-LAN technology. Several ideas such as using home wiring or electricity wiring for implementation of Home-LANs were studied, but Wi-Fi emerged as the natural solution. At that time, the price of a Wi-Fi access point (AP), such as the one made by Linksys, had fallen to below $100 and wireless PC Cards could be purchased with a reasonable price of a few tens of dollars. The original early shoe boxes had been selling for a few hundred dollars for the hub and up to a few thousand dollars for the AP! With these lower prices, coffeeshops and other small businesses could afford to provide free Wi-Fi and homeowners could bring Wi-Fi home. This was perhaps the first large market bringing Wi-Fi from office to the home. During the 2000’s despite the crash of the .com industry, the Wi-Fi market in this domain began to grow exponentially. The exponential growth of Wi-Fi for SOHO encouraged consumer product manufacturing to consider Wi-Fi for integration in their products (e.g., in digital cameras and TV monitors). This market was however not that large, and the ease of Wi-Fi networking did not exist. The integration of Wi-Fi in the iPhone was the next major marketing break-through for Wi-Fi popularity and market growth. Integration of Wi-Fi into smartphone increased the sale of Wi-Fi chipsets to billions and further enabled Wi-Fi based positioning. More recently Wi-Fi applications expanded by emergence of motion and gesture detection as well as authentication and security with Wi-Fi signals to facilitate human computer interaction. Figure  5 summarizes the evolution of Wi-Fi applications. We provide an overview of these cyberspace application using the Wi-Fi signal in the remainder of this paper.

Evolution of Wi-Fi applications and market

3 From Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi Positioning – Emergence of Another “Killer App”

In the early 1990’s, when the expected market for WLANs did not emerge, those invested in this emerging technology began to discover reasons for the lack of success. These were the CEO’s of startups and managers of the WLAN projects in larger companies. Some were associating the lack of success to the delay in finalizing the IEEE 802.11 standard and some to the lack of a “Killer App”. The standard itself was completed in 1997 (with interoperability tests) and soon, deployment in SOHO scenarios appeared as the “Killer App” in the late 1990’s. Adoption of Wi-Fi in smart phones in the late 2000 s was another breakthrough “Killer App” of Wi-Fi technology, which enabled these devices to execute a number of user applications such as integration of search engines, email, and large file transfers using smart phones. Other networked applications that were typically done on a desktop using the Internet followed (e.g., e-commerce and banking). However, the Wi-Fi Positioning engine was perhaps the most innovative “Killer App” related to Wi-Fi technology that was introduced by the iPhone. When Steve Jobs introduced Skyhook of Boston’s Wi-Fi positioning technology in the iPhone, and he called it “Cool” and a “neat idea” [ 55 ], because it was different.

3.1 The Origin of Wi-Fi Positioning

Because of the commercial success of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in the mid-1990’s, the fact that GPS does not work properly in indoor areas, and the FCC mandate on E911 services for cellular networks, the indoor geolocation science and technology began to emerge in the late 1990’s [ 56 , 57 ]. The expensive cost of dense infrastructure needed for commercial positioning applications led that industry to resort to opportunistic positioning. Opportunistic Wi-Fi positioning using received Wi-Fi signals radiated from the Wi-Fi access points, originally deployed for wireless communications in office areas, was the first idea to attract attention for a cost effective indoor geolocation system [ 58 , 59 ]. The received signal strength (RSS) or time of arrival (TOA) of the signals radiated from the access points could be used for positioning since the locations of the access points were known and could be used for this purpose. The RSS was a quantity that was easier to measure but it was not accurate enough for good location granularity. The use of RSS for positioning became practical only by incorporating intelligence through training the system with fingerprinting and using pattern recognition algorithms to find the location [ 60 , 61 ]. This training was done with similar devices that collected data at known locations to make up the training fingerprints. The more accurate TOA measurements [ 59 ] needed additional design to be incorporated through a TOA acquisition system. The widespread deployment of Wi-Fi in office areas was more fertile for commercial development and a few companies, such as Ekahau, Helsinki, Finland, adopted that technology as their Wi-Fi positioning indoor geolocation system. Today this Wi-Fi positioning industry is sometime referred to as “real time positioning system” RTLS) [ 62 ]. The commercial success of RTLS was rather limited and it never generated a substantial market for Wi-Fi positioning.

Another approach to Wi-Fi positioning was to collect the fingerprint of locations from the APs from a vehicle driving in the streets and tagging the fingerprints with the GPS location reports of the vehicle at the time of measurement. This was the approach used by Skyhook Wireless, Boston, MA, which was adopted by the iPhone and was trademarked as “Wi-Fi Positioning System” (WPS) by Skyhook [ 62 ]. The difference between RTLS and WPS are: (1) RTLS typically covers only one building while WPS covers a metropolitan area, (2) fingerprinting in RTLS for a given area of coverage is much more expensive than WPS, (3) RTLS provides an accuracy of around a few meters while WPS provides for accuracies on the order of 10-15 m. Larger coverage areas with accuracies of 10-15 m enabled turn-by-turn direction finding for vehicles in the metropolitan areas that was the highlight of positioning applications in the original iPhone [ 55 ]. As a result, WPS became a commercial success and a highlight of the magic of iPhone applications. Today, Skyhook’s database contains over a billion AP locations worldwide and its database receives over a billion hits per day from smart device applications using WPS technologies. Google, Apple and other cyberspace giants have formed their own WPS system with their own database of APs along with that of the Skyhook.

3.2 Emergence of Location Intelligence from WPS

WPS is a device-based positioning system, i.e., a device reads the RSS of surrounding Wi-Fi devices with their MAC addresses. These readings are transferred to a central server with a database of the mapping of fingerprints to position and the system can determine the location of the device using the fingerprint database. Thus, communication link to carry these information between the device and the server is essential here, which Wi-Fi already provides. This process traditionally takes place in two steps, fingerprinting and positioning. During the fingerprinting phase, a data acquisition device located in a vehicle drives on the streets. In this phase the MAC addresses of the APs and their associated RSS are sampled approximately every second and each sample is tagged with the GPS reading of the location at the time of sampling. The fingerprint in the database, the MAC addresses and the GPS readings are post processed with proprietary algorithms to associate the MAC addresses of each AP to a location based on GPS readings. In this way, the WPS system builds a database of locations of the APs in the areas that the vehicles drive through. When a device, not knowing its location, sends the MAC address of an AP and RSS readings to the server, the server uses another proprietary algorithm to position the device and determine its location. The major WPS service providers, Skyhook, Google, and Apple, each receive approximately one billion requests per day from millions of devices. The one billion hits each associate a personal device address to a location and one can track the movements of the device. Applications drawing from this motion tracking capability of WPS are referred to as “location intelligent” and are said to be providing location-based services. One simple location intelligence application is the location-time traffic analysis. We may grade the density of hits per-hour of the day to determine where the people are going, and smart marketing strategies can benefit from that data. Other location intelligent applications include “geofencing” of elderly people, animals, prisoners, suspicious people, real world consumer behavior, location certification for security, positioning IP addresses, and customizing contents and experiences. During the recent COVID pandemic, Apple made its mobility data (when people were asking directions – and thus location information) public to enable assessing the social distancing and quarantine postures in various cities and communities [ 63 ]. Of course, this data also includes cell phone technology, but it is an indication of how far sensing signals from mobile devices has come, starting with Wi-Fi positioning.

The future directions in Wi-Fi positioning is in the integration of RSS signals with other sensor readings on smart devices (accelerometers for instance) to enhance the precision and flexibility of positioning. There are research works on integration of mechanical sensors such as accelerometer and gyroscope on robotic platforms with Wi-Fi positioning [ 64 ], there are works in integrating more precise UWB positioning with limited coverage with wider coverage Wi-Fi positioning [ 65 ], and frameworks for generalizing fingerprinting in multi-sensor environment [ 66 , 67 ]. Other researchers investigate submeter Wi-Fi positioning using Wi-Fi channel state information (CSI) [ 68 ].

4 Wi-Fi and Emerging Cyberspace Applications

Wi-Fi localization, either for local indoor areas (what we referred to above as RTLS) or for metropolitan areas (which we referred to as WPS) makes use of the RSS feature from APs that are broadcasting signals, by reading their broadcast quasi-periodic beacon signal. Beacons are used to advertise the availability of an AP thereby enabling other devices like smartphones or laptops to access the Wi-Fi network (called basic or extended service area in the standard). A device that reads the beacon only for localization does not need to connect to the AP because it only needs the MAC address and the RSS information for positioning itself. Access Points radiate a radio frequency (RF) cloud around themselves which are available to any device in their area of coverage. The RSS is one feature of the Wi-Fi RF cloud, which can be measured easily without any coordination between the transmitter and the receiver. With some coordination, the receiver can measure the Time of Arrival (TOA) of a signal as well. Today, the dominant transmission technique in Wi-Fi is MIMO-OFDM. Devices which can use MIMO_OFDM can also measure Direction of Arrival (DOA), channel impulse response (CIR), and the Channel State Information (CSI) of the multipath medium between the transmitter and the received [ 69 ]. These features (as well as the RSS feature) vary statistically depending on the multipath characteristics arising from the motion in the environment. Consequently, it is possible to use these features for motion and gesture detection. In this section, we begin by describing these statistical behaviors and following that we briefly review the emerging research benefitting from analyzing these statistical changes in features, toward the design of cyberspace applications for human-computer interactions.

4.1 Characteristics of Features of Wi-Fi Signals in Multipath

Figure  6 , illustrates a general line-of-sight (LOS) scenario for a MIMO-OFDM Wi-Fi communication with typical multipath propagation. Multiple paths are reflected from walls and other stationary and moving objects in the environment. These paths are often clustered due to scattering from smaller objects located close to each other. In an ideal situation, the stationary baseband CIR for wireless devices operating in multipath indoor areas is represented by:

where \((\alpha_{i} ;\tau_{i} ;\theta_{i} ;\psi_{i} )\,\) are the magnitude, TOA, phase, and DOA of the i-th path, and N is the number of multipath components. In this equation the phase of the arriving path and the TOA are related by \(\theta_{i} = 2\pi f_{c} \tau_{i} \,\) . Therefore, if we measure the TOA, we can calculate phase and vice versa. Since the phase is a periodic function, in calculation of the TOA from the phase we should consider such ambiguities [ 57 ]. The TOA, amplitude, and phase of each path as well as the RSS can be calculated from the length of the path, by:

, where \(f_{c} \,\) is the carrier frequency of the signal, \(\lambda = c/f_{c} \,\) is the wavelength of the signal, \(d_{i}\) , is the length of the path, and c is the speed of light. If we have an antenna array, we can calculate the DOA from TOA differences between the received signals from different array elements. When we have motion in the environment, either by moving the location of the devices or objects move in the environment, the lengths of the various paths change affecting features such as RSS, TOA, and DOA. In addition, due to Doppler shift effects, a change in the length of a path with the velocity of \(v_{i} \,\) meters per second causes a frequency off-set in the carrier frequency calculated from [ 57 ] :

Multipath scenario of RF propagation for Wi-Fi enabled indoor wireless communications using OFDM/MIMO technology

In summary, if a receiver can measure the CIR and the frequency off-set, it can monitor the length and direction of the path as well as the velocity of changes in the path lengths.

As shown in Eq. ( 2 ), the amplitude of the received signal, \(\alpha_{i}\) , from a path changes inversely with the increase in the path length, \(d_{i}\) . The phase of the arriving signal from a path, \(\theta_{i}\) , changes rapidly for a value of \(2\pi\) each time the length of the path increases by a value equivalent to the wavelength of the signal, \(\lambda\) . The rapid change in phase of the arriving paths causes fading and these rapid changes are caused by motion of the device, motion of people around the devices, and by the changes in frequency of operation. In the wireless communication literature, fading characteristics is studied under temporal, frequency-selective, and spatial fading [ 39 ].

The traditional application of measurements of the CIR is in high-speed wireless communications and in radars. Modern applications that use CIR measurements are in wireless positioning, gesture, and motion detection, and in authentication and security. Each application relies on certain specific features of the CIR and for that needs to measure those features with certain precision at the receiver. The accuracy of measurement of these features at a receiver relies on training (known signals), the bandwidth of the system, availability of antenna arrays at the receiver, and accuracy of synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver. As a result, the specific implementation of these applications have unique challenges and demand research and development and decades of years of evolution. Traditional radar and digital communication systems were built around the second World War and today we are still developing new cyberspace applications around them. What is changing is the application environment and characteristics of multipath inside those environments. As we move from open areas to sub-urban, densely populated urban areas, and indoor areas, the multipath propagation of RF signals increases, and design of applications faces new challenges.

The measurement of multipath characteristics of the channel was a very challenging problem in the early 1970’s [ 70 ]. Wideband digital communication systems evolving in this era needed the estimate of multipath arrivals to enhance their data rates. Wideband multipath channel measurement in that period would be a subject for a Ph.D. thesis [ 71 ]. Today, all wireless communication devices measure the multipath characteristics as a routine in the design of their systems.

If the bandwidth of the system is wide enough so that the width of the transmitted communication symbols, the inverse of the bandwidth, is less than the inter-arrival time of the paths, a sensitive enough receiver can isolate each path and measure the features precisely. If the bandwidth of the channel is not wide enough, a receiver can only detect a cluster of paths as one path. In wireless communications we can categorize device receivers into three categories, ultra-wideband (UWB), Footnote 3 wideband (WB), and narrowband (NB). UWB systems are capable of measuring most individual paths, WB receivers measure multipath arrivals but each path is in reality an aggregate of a cluster of paths, and NB receivers receive the signal from many paths as essentially a single path that combines all multipath arrivals (see Fig.  7 ). When a receiver detects a path that is indeed the combination of several neighboring paths, due to fast variations of the phases of the original path, the amplitude of the detected path experiences Rayleigh or Rician fading and the TOA of the detected path obviously is something very different from any of the individual paths in wireless communication applications, fading causes huge degradation of the maximum achievable data rate, and to compensate for that the research community have discovered equalization, spread spectrum, OFDM, and MIMO technologies in the past several decades [ 39 ]. The popular TOA-based location related applications measure the distance from the delay of the TOA of the direct path between the transmitters and the receiver and integration of multiple paths in a single path at the receiver causes huge errors in distance estimation (1 m error for every 3 ns error in delay).

Multipath detection in UWB and multipath clustering in WB and NB receivers

The receivers of wireless communication devices employing these technologies measure the characteristic of the communication channel and characteristics of these measurements vary, depending on the architecture and bandwidth of the system. Empirical measurements and modeling of multipath RF propagation in indoor areas in the late 1980’s, first showed that if the bandwidth exceeded 100 MHz the amplitude of multipath arrivals follows a lognormal distribution, caused by shadowing, and they do not follow the commonly assumed Rayleigh or Rician multipath fading characteristics [ 24 ]. Therefore, we may consider Wi-Fi technologies using bandwidths on that order as UWB systems that can resolve the paths. The characteristics of CIR measurements with UWB systems is that the amplitude of the paths follow a lognormal distribution that is much more stable than Rayleigh/Rician distributions, and the TOA measurements are precise for calculation of the delay of the paths. The IEEE 802.11ad devices certainly follow the UWB characteristics. The IEEE 802.11ac options with bandwidth up to 160 MHz gets close to observing UWB features. However, legacy IEEE 802.11 and the popular 802.11 a,g,n,ac,ax,af can be considered as WB systems with bandwidths of approximately 20-40 MHz (and sometimes up to 80 MHz). The IEEE 802.11 standards using OFDM have sub-carriers with a bandwidth of approximately 20 MHz/64 = 375 kHz per carrier, which is considered NB. In summary, channel measurements for NB transmissions provide for a stream of Rayleigh fading amplitudes and uniformly distributed phases. The phase measurements do not support a reliable measure of distance and WB systems provide multiple streams of NB data. The UWB systems provide for multiple streams of slow lognormally fading signals with multiple streams of phases that are beneficial for accurate measurements of the delays of the associated paths.

The most popular Wi-Fi devices at the time of this writing, IEEE802.11n and IEEE 802.11ac, use MIMO-OFDM technology with three transmitters and two receiver antennas, shown in Fig.  6 . The OFDM signal has 64 sub-carriers, using 52 of these carriers for communication data. In addition, to the magnitude and phase of the carriers they also provide the frequency off-set from the center frequency as well as six streams of magnitude and phases of the CSI data. Depending on the quality of the beam forming algorithm to sharpen the beam, the CSI data can represent a single path or a cluster of paths arriving from a direction. If it is a cluster, the amplitude samples have a Rayleigh distribution and if it is a single path the amplitudes should be more stable with a lognormal fading behavior. The number of paths in the cluster also governs the accuracy of delay of the path measurement using the phase of the received CSI stream [ 72 ]. Recently, these data streams have been paired with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to initiate research in several cyberspace applications.

4.2 Emerging Cyberspace Applications of Wi-Fi

In recent years, researchers have studied a variety of Wi-Fi “RF cloud” features in several cyberspace applications and for the enhancement of local area positioning systems. The idea of using the preamble of OFDM signals, first introduced in HIPERLAN-2/IEEE 802.11a standard, for TOA localization was discussed at the emergence of this standard in [ 59 ]. In this work, the pseudo noise (PN) sequence used in the preamble of the OFDM signal is used for TOA positioning. Like the measurement of timing in GPS, the TOA is measured from the time displacements in the sharp peak of the autocorrelation function of the PN-sequence. It is also possible to measure the TOA from the phase of the received signal; however, this is very sensitive to multipath fading [ 57 ]. OFDM/MIMO systems reduce the multipath allowing a more accurate measurement of TOA using the phase of the received signal. Recently, the measurement of TOA using the phase of Wi-Fi signals with OFDM/MIMO was used for fine-grained micro-robot tracking in [ 68 , 73 ]. The experience in that work suggests that in a line-of-sight (LOS) situation (close distance between transmitter and receiver), where the multipath features are not significant, the phase of the received signal provides a reasonable estimate of the distance. Others have experimented with CSI fingerprints to enhance indoor Wi-Fi positioning [ 74 ]. As we explained in Sect.  4.1 , CSI provides multiple streams of magnitude and phase and the phase information can be used for TOA estimations. The research trend in [ 59 , 68 , 73 , 74 ] opens a horizon for higher precision Wi-Fi positioning, as they are compared to RSS based Wi-Fi positioning in local indoor [ 58 , 75 ], and wider metropolitan areas [ 62 , 76 , 77 ].

In the past decade, the design of novel “cyberspace intelligence” applications that opportunistically benefit from the “RF cloud” radiated from signals used for wireless communications and short range radars, has been a fertile area of research [ 69 ]. These applications take advantage of statistical variations of RF signals propagated from the wireless devices, caused by motion in the environment to design applications that can detect gestures and motion or those used for authentication and security. Because of the widespread deployment and reach of Wi-Fi access points and the availability of Wi-Fi chip sets in almost every personal electronic device, as described in Sects.  2.4 and 2.5, a large body of this literature has evolved around this Wi-Fi RF cloud. Once again, the simplest feature of the Wi-Fi RF cloud is the RSS. Motions in the environment cause multipath fading resulting in changes in the RSS and statistics of this fading behavior as it relates to the speed of motion. The applications benefit from this behavioral change in the RSS to develop simple possibilities in detecting motion related human activity. This trend of research began in the early 2010’s and has evolved throughout that decade. As an example, the time- and frequency-domain multipath fading characteristics of the RSS from body mounted health monitoring sensors was examined in the lead author’s laboratory in the early 2010’s to differentiate among standing, walking, and jogging activities by humans [ 78 ]. In the mid-2010’s, when the infusion of AI to applications became popular, the same idea with more complex activity classifications with AI algorithms was pursued [ 79 ]. In the middle of these activities, hand motion classification using RSS and the frequency offset of OFDM signals from Wi-Fi devices when motion occurs between two devices without any body mounted device was reported to differentiate nine hand gestures [ 80 ]. Research in that direction encouraged the consideration of a more advanced feature such as the CSI for similar applications and suddenly a large body of literature emerged for a variety of related applications for human computer interaction that made extensive use of the statistical behavior of CSI from Wi-Fi signals. Approximately 150 of these papers are classified in [ 81 ]. These papers use CSI toward what is called as “device-free” human activity detection [ 82 ] all the way up to micro-gesture detection applications such as detecting hand motion while typing [ 83 , 84 ].

In gesture and motion detection using RF signals, the work takes advantage of the effects of motion on changing the multipath propagation of signals and the resulting change in statistical behavior of the features of RF cloud to classify human activity. Similarly, it is possible to use the uniqueness of these variations for individual human motions to identify a person. For example, when we train a computer to detect the keystroke of a person using the CSI from Wi-Fi signals, the same system can identify that person as the keystrokes of one individual vary from that of another. This way, using the CSI for keystroke detection can also be used for human authentication for security purposes [ 83 ]. In recent years, a body of literature has also evolved for applications of the Wi-Fi RF cloud in authentication and security. Again, the simplest feature that is used is the RSS and it is possible to use the RSS behavior of body mounted sensors to identify a person [ 85 ]. Fundamentally, authentication is a binary decision-making process (is it Alice or not?) and activity classification is a multiple classification problem (is Alice jogging, walking, standing, or sitting?). In authentication we compare RF feature characteristics of one person to others, while in activity classification we usually compare different activities of a single person. Such similarities have led to the emergence of literature in using more complex CSI from Wi-Fi signals for device-free authentication such as those in [ 86 ]. Another survey of these categories of applications is available in [ 87 ].

The problem of entity authentication is for security – whether an authorized individual is performing an action. However, there is another branch of security application, concerned with generation of unique (and random so that it cannot be guessed) keys for encryption of the data communication between wireless devices sharing this natural broadcasting medium. The fundamental idea comes from the fact that the wireless communication channel between two devices is reciprocal [ 88 , 89 ]. Therefore, when we measure the features of the communication channel between two devices, these features should be the same. However, the details of the electronic implementation of a device is unique to itself and that results in measurements which are not identical. If we can model these differences by a measurement noise, then we can quantize the measured feature based on the measurement noise to establish the same key at two ends of a wireless communication link. A survey of these physical layer security systems is available in [ 90 , 91 ]. Geo-fencing, to ensure that Wi-Fi signal propagation can be confined to the inside of a building is another interesting application of radio propagation for information security [ 92 ].

Although in past decade these cyberspace applications of Wi-Fi signals have attracted significant intellectual attention for research, the commercial market is still waiting for a “Killer App” like Wi-Fi positioning and tracking. The industry is waiting for the next popular application of Wi-Fi signals to enhance cyberspace intelligence further.

5 Conclusions

In this paper we presented a historical perspective of the evolution of Wi-Fi technology in the way that the principal author experienced it (and subsequently the second author) since the inception of this industry in early 1980’s. The paper was prepared as a part of a special issue on the 25 anniversaries of the International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, which was established in 1994 as the first journal fully devoted to wireless networks. In the paper, we began by describing how Wi-Fi has impacted our daily lives and why it is playing this important role. Then we discussed how the dominant physical layer wireless communication technologies, wireless optical, spread spectrum, OFDM and MIMO, and mmWave UWB technologies, were first implemented in the IEEE 802.11 standards for Wi-Fi and how indoor radio propagation studies were conducted to enable these technologies. The rest of the paper illustrated how the RF cloud propagated from Wi-Fi devices enabled important cyberspace applications. We began this part by describing how Wi-Fi positioning revolutionized indoor geolocation science and technology. Then we explained how the RF cloud of Wi-Fi devices has enabled diverse cyberspace applications such as motion and gesture detection as well as authentication and security to hopefully lead the way to another revolution in human computer interfacing.

A version of this paper was originally presented as a keynote speech entitled “Evolution of Wi-Fi Access and Localization – A Historical Perspective”, IEEE VTC, Boston, MA, May 6, 2015. Material presented further evolved in other keynote speeches, the last one in Cybercon’19, Beijing, China, December 16, 2019.

In the recent pandemic, parents and children are using Wi-Fi for work and school, and its untethered feature has made a big difference to the way people have coped with social distancing and quarantines.

We use the term UWB differently here than before, where extremely narrow pulses of bandwidth on the order of a GHz are used for fine grained localization. The term UWB is also now used by commercial 5G systems differently.

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Pahlavan, K., Krishnamurthy, P. Evolution and Impact of Wi-Fi Technology and Applications: A Historical Perspective. Int J Wireless Inf Networks 28 , 3–19 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-020-00501-8

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Mobile Wireless Internet vs. Wi-Fi Essay

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Mobile Wireless Internet

Nowadays, people from developed countries cannot imagine their lives without mobile telephones with an Internet connection. Both mobile wireless Internet and Wi-Fi are intended to provide network services efficiently and fast enough to operate online without limitations. The following paper will compare and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of regular 3G and Wi-Fi connections to the World Wide Web.

There are many controversies among people who use different methods of Internet connections on their mobile phones. Moreover, every user is right and gives reasonable arguments to argue his or her viewpoint. To identify the best connection method, it is essential to try each option mentioned above.

Wi-Fi is a network that requires electricity and a cable of a certain Internet provider that delivers the signal via a wireless modem. This method is prevalent today, and many families install such devices in their houses because it is very convenient to have the Internet available in every part of a house. Today, in the twenty-first-century, people need Wi-Fi not only for their laptops or personal computers (Ngo, 2016). It is estimated that an average American owns approximately six gadgets that allow him or her to visit various websites and search for information online (Mah, 2009). Therefore, Wi-Fi is a smart solution for a dwelling because its signal is stable, and the connection that modern routers deliver is high-speed.

However, the aforementioned method represents particular disadvantages that do not make it as efficient as a mobile wireless Internet connection in a plethora of situations. For instance, Wi-Fi is available only in private houses, cafes, subway stations, and other facilities and businesses that specialize in providing certain services to people. Since sometimes clients are obliged to wait for their orders to be processed for hours, different companies provide free Wi-Fi access to their customers due to their appreciation of people’s time.

Nevertheless, there are two more problems that this method might present. The first issue stems from a restricted number of people who are allowed to connect through one Wi-Fi point because some routers do not have enough power to process more than a set number of devices (“Disadvantages of wireless networks,” 2017). The last drawback implies passwords that owners of Wi-Fi connection points usually apply to their systems. This simple operation restricts other people’s access to a particular router. However, having an open connection might be illegal in some states. For instance, a stranger may stand near one’s house and be connected to the nearest Wi-Fi signal to download something from a pirate website or hack various security systems. Although the stranger commits a crime, the host of an IP-address is legally responsible for all the actions through his or her router.

As it was mentioned above, almost every individual owns a mobile phone today, which is very instrumental in organizing one’s schedule, having a connection with colleagues or family, and surfing the Internet (Tolstrup, 2015). Not so long ago, every impatient person would prefer to be connected to the Internet using Wi-Fi. However, the situation has changed, and the speed of mobile wireless connection became almost the same as the regular Internet. Therefore, people who are obliged to travel (to work or to educational institutions) every day or need constant access to the World Wide Web prefer using 3G.

The most obvious advantages of mobile wireless connections are in their convenience and accessibility from any part of a city. However, this method requires investment, as it is new to the world’s market of technologies. Therefore, every company that provides such services does not offer the most favorable terms of payments, so not all citizens can afford to use this method on a daily basis (“Disadvantages of wireless networks,” 2017). Nevertheless, it is always good to find some data quickly because today’s world of new technologies requires people to check the authenticity of particular information because mass media do not hesitate to misinform their audiences lately.

Today, the majority of residents of the United States of America use the mobile wireless Internet because it lets people play their favorite games and applications that require a network connection. Moreover, a wide variety of different organizing programs need the Internet as well. Otherwise, they might not operate properly. In conclusion, it would be proper to compare the methods discussed above (3G and Wi-Fi) and identify the best one of them.

The second option (mobile wireless Internet) was developed due to a plethora of users’ requests who wanted to stay online with their social network profiles when they were away from their homes. Although the technology of Wi-Fi is getting old, it remains popular till the present moment because wireless routers’ ability to connect several devices to the Internet at the same time is crucial for today’s families or roommates (Mah, 2009). Nevertheless, 3G, 4G, and LTE are used more recently than any other type of connection. Therefore, mobile network functions remain the most popular, efficient, and useful option among their competitors.

Nowadays, Internet users do not download gigabytes of different files to their computers. Instead, people prefer to use their mobile phones and enjoy particular content online. Therefore, such networks as LTE, 3G, and 4G are more efficient and useful than a regular Wi-Fi connection. The world changes every second, and there is no doubt that even the most convenient connection method will be replaced with an improved technology someday.

Disadvantages of wireless networks . (2017). Web.

Mah, P. (2009). Wi-Fi or 3G: Which is better for mobile users? Web.

Ngo, D. (2016). Believe it or not, Wi-Fi and Internet are two different things . Web.

Tolstrup, M. (2015). Indoor radio planning: A practical guide for 2G, 3G, and 4G . Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

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The Impact of the Internet on Society: A Global Perspective

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The Internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age, and with the explosion of wireless communication in the early twenty-first century, we can say that humankind is now almost entirely connected, albeit with great levels of inequality in bandwidth, efficiency, and price.

People, companies, and institutions feel the depth of this technological change, but the speed and scope of the transformation has triggered all manner of utopian and dystopian perceptions that, when examined closely through methodologically rigorous empirical research, turn out not to be accurate. For instance, media often report that intense use of the Internet increases the risk of isolation, alienation, and withdrawal from society, but available evidence shows that the Internet neither isolates people nor reduces their sociability; it actually increases sociability, civic engagement, and the intensity of family and friendship relationships, in all cultures.

Our current “network society” is a product of the digital revolution and some major sociocultural changes. One of these is the rise of the “Me-centered society,” marked by an increased focus on individual growth and a decline in community understood in terms of space, work, family, and ascription in general. But individuation does not mean isolation, or the end of community. Instead, social relationships are being reconstructed on the basis of individual interests, values, and projects. Community is formed through individuals’ quests for like-minded people in a process that combines online interaction with offline interaction, cyberspace, and the local space.

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Globally, time spent on social networking sites surpassed time spent on e-mail in November 2007, and the number of social networking users surpassed the number of e-mail users in July 2009. Today, social networking sites are the preferred platforms for all kinds of activities, both business and personal, and sociability has dramatically increased — but it is a different kind of sociability. Most Facebook users visit the site daily, and they connect on multiple dimensions, but only on the dimensions they choose. The virtual life is becoming more social than the physical life, but it is less a virtual reality than a real virtuality, facilitating real-life work and urban living.

Because people are increasingly at ease in the Web’s multidimensionality, marketers, government, and civil society are migrating massively to the networks people construct by themselves and for themselves. At root, social-networking entrepreneurs are really selling spaces in which people can freely and autonomously construct their lives. Sites that attempt to impede free communication are soon abandoned by many users in favor of friendlier and less restricted spaces.

Perhaps the most telling expression of this new freedom is the Internet’s transformation of sociopolitical practices. Messages no longer flow solely from the few to the many, with little interactivity. Now, messages also flow from the many to the many, multimodally and interactively. By disintermediating government and corporate control of communication, horizontal communication networks have created a new landscape of social and political change.

Networked social movements have been particularly active since 2010, notably in the Arab revolutions against dictatorships and the protests against the management of the financial crisis. Online and particularly wireless communication has helped social movements pose more of a challenge to state power.

The Internet and the Web constitute the technological infrastructure of the global network society, and the understanding of their logic is a key field of research. It is only scholarly research that will enable us to cut through the myths surrounding this digital communication technology that is already a second skin for young people, yet continues to feed the fears and the fantasies of those who are still in charge of a society that they barely understand.

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The Internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age, as the electrical engine was the vector of technological transformation of the Industrial Age. This global network of computer networks, largely based nowadays on platforms of wireless communication, provides ubiquitous capacity of multimodal, interactive communication in chosen time, transcending space. The Internet is not really a new technology: its ancestor, the Arpanet, was first deployed in 1969 (Abbate 1999). But it was in the 1990s when it was privatized and released from the control of the U.S. Department of Commerce that it diffused around the world at extraordinary speed: in 1996 the first survey of Internet users counted about 40 million; in 2013 they are over 2.5 billion, with China accounting for the largest number of Internet users. Furthermore, for some time the spread of the Internet was limited by the difficulty to lay out land-based telecommunications infrastructure in the emerging countries. This has changed with the explosion of wireless communication in the early twenty-first century. Indeed, in 1991, there were about 16 million subscribers of wireless devices in the world, in 2013 they are close to 7 billion (in a planet of 7.7 billion human beings). Counting on the family and village uses of mobile phones, and taking into consideration the limited use of these devices among children under five years of age, we can say that humankind is now almost entirely connected, albeit with great levels of inequality in the bandwidth as well as in the efficiency and price of the service.

At the heart of these communication networks the Internet ensures the production, distribution, and use of digitized information in all formats. According to the study published by Martin Hilbert in Science (Hilbert and López 2011), 95 percent of all information existing in the planet is digitized and most of it is accessible on the Internet and other computer networks.

The speed and scope of the transformation of our communication environment by Internet and wireless communication has triggered all kind of utopian and dystopian perceptions around the world.

As in all moments of major technological change, people, companies, and institutions feel the depth of the change, but they are often overwhelmed by it, out of sheer ignorance of its effects.

The media aggravate the distorted perception by dwelling into scary reports on the basis of anecdotal observation and biased commentary. If there is a topic in which social sciences, in their diversity, should contribute to the full understanding of the world in which we live, it is precisely the area that has come to be named in academia as Internet Studies. Because, in fact, academic research knows a great deal on the interaction between Internet and society, on the basis of methodologically rigorous empirical research conducted in a plurality of cultural and institutional contexts. Any process of major technological change generates its own mythology. In part because it comes into practice before scientists can assess its effects and implications, so there is always a gap between social change and its understanding. For instance, media often report that intense use of the Internet increases the risk of alienation, isolation, depression, and withdrawal from society. In fact, available evidence shows that there is either no relationship or a positive cumulative relationship between the Internet use and the intensity of sociability. We observe that, overall, the more sociable people are, the more they use the Internet. And the more they use the Internet, the more they increase their sociability online and offline, their civic engagement, and the intensity of family and friendship relationships, in all cultures—with the exception of a couple of early studies of the Internet in the 1990s, corrected by their authors later (Castells 2001; Castells et al. 2007; Rainie and Wellman 2012; Center for the Digital Future 2012 et al.).

Thus, the purpose of this chapter will be to summarize some of the key research findings on the social effects of the Internet relying on the evidence provided by some of the major institutions specialized in the social study of the Internet. More specifically, I will be using the data from the world at large: the World Internet Survey conducted by the Center for the Digital Future, University of Southern California; the reports of the British Computer Society (BCS), using data from the World Values Survey of the University of Michigan; the Nielsen reports for a variety of countries; and the annual reports from the International Telecommunications Union. For data on the United States, I have used the Pew American Life and Internet Project of the Pew Institute. For the United Kingdom, the Oxford Internet Survey from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, as well as the Virtual Society Project from the Economic and Social Science Research Council. For Spain, the Project Internet Catalonia of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC); the various reports on the information society from Telefónica; and from the Orange Foundation. For Portugal, the Observatório de Sociedade da Informação e do Conhecimento (OSIC) in Lisbon. I would like to emphasize that most of the data in these reports converge toward similar trends. Thus I have selected for my analysis the findings that complement and reinforce each other, offering a consistent picture of the human experience on the Internet in spite of the human diversity.

Given the aim of this publication to reach a broad audience, I will not present in this text the data supporting the analysis presented here. Instead, I am referring the interested reader to the web sources of the research organizations mentioned above, as well as to selected bibliographic references discussing the empirical foundation of the social trends reported here.

Technologies of Freedom, the Network Society, and the Culture of Autonomy

In order to fully understand the effects of the Internet on society, we should remember that technology is material culture. It is produced in a social process in a given institutional environment on the basis of the ideas, values, interests, and knowledge of their producers, both their early producers and their subsequent producers. In this process we must include the users of the technology, who appropriate and adapt the technology rather than adopting it, and by so doing they modify it and produce it in an endless process of interaction between technological production and social use. So, to assess the relevance of Internet in society we must recall the specific characteristics of Internet as a technology. Then we must place it in the context of the transformation of the overall social structure, as well as in relationship to the culture characteristic of this social structure. Indeed, we live in a new social structure, the global network society, characterized by the rise of a new culture, the culture of autonomy.

Internet is a technology of freedom, in the terms coined by Ithiel de Sola Pool in 1973, coming from a libertarian culture, paradoxically financed by the Pentagon for the benefit of scientists, engineers, and their students, with no direct military application in mind (Castells 2001). The expansion of the Internet from the mid-1990s onward resulted from the combination of three main factors:

• The technological discovery of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee and his willingness to distribute the source code to improve it by the open-source contribution of a global community of users, in continuity with the openness of the TCP/IP Internet protocols. The web keeps running under the same principle of open source. And two-thirds of web servers are operated by Apache, an open-source server program.
• Institutional change in the management of the Internet, keeping it under the loose management of the global Internet community, privatizing it, and allowing both commercial uses and cooperative uses.
• Major changes in social structure, culture, and social behavior: networking as a prevalent organizational form; individuation as the main orientation of social behavior; and the culture of autonomy as the culture of the network society.

I will elaborate on these major trends.

Our society is a network society; that is, a society constructed around personal and organizational networks powered by digital networks and communicated by the Internet. And because networks are global and know no boundaries, the network society is a global network society. This historically specific social structure resulted from the interaction between the emerging technological paradigm based on the digital revolution and some major sociocultural changes. A primary dimension of these changes is what has been labeled the rise of the Me-centered society, or, in sociological terms, the process of individuation, the decline of community understood in terms of space, work, family, and ascription in general. This is not the end of community, and not the end of place-based interaction, but there is a shift toward the reconstruction of social relationships, including strong cultural and personal ties that could be considered a form of community, on the basis of individual interests, values, and projects.

The process of individuation is not just a matter of cultural evolution, it is materially produced by the new forms of organizing economic activities, and social and political life, as I analyzed in my trilogy on the Information Age (Castells 1996–2003). It is based on the transformation of space (metropolitan life), work and economic activity (rise of the networked enterprise and networked work processes), culture and communication (shift from mass communication based on mass media to mass self-communication based on the Internet); on the crisis of the patriarchal family, with increasing autonomy of its individual members; the substitution of media politics for mass party politics; and globalization as the selective networking of places and processes throughout the planet.

But individuation does not mean isolation, or even less the end of community. Sociability is reconstructed as networked individualism and community through a quest for like-minded individuals in a process that combines online interaction with offline interaction, cyberspace and the local space. Individuation is the key process in constituting subjects (individual or collective), networking is the organizational form constructed by these subjects; this is the network society, and the form of sociability is what Rainie and Wellman (2012) conceptualized as networked individualism. Network technologies are of course the medium for this new social structure and this new culture (Papacharissi 2010).

As stated above, academic research has established that the Internet does not isolate people, nor does it reduce their sociability; it actually increases sociability, as shown by myself in my studies in Catalonia (Castells 2007), Rainie and Wellman in the United States (2012), Cardoso in Portugal (2010), and the World Internet Survey for the world at large (Center for the Digital Future 2012 et al.). Furthermore, a major study by Michael Willmott for the British Computer Society (Trajectory Partnership 2010) has shown a positive correlation, for individuals and for countries, between the frequency and intensity of the use of the Internet and the psychological indicators of personal happiness. He used global data for 35,000 people obtained from the World Wide Survey of the University of Michigan from 2005 to 2007. Controlling for other factors, the study showed that Internet use empowers people by increasing their feelings of security, personal freedom, and influence, all feelings that have a positive effect on happiness and personal well-being. The effect is particularly positive for people with lower income and who are less qualified, for people in the developing world, and for women. Age does not affect the positive relationship; it is significant for all ages. Why women? Because they are at the center of the network of their families, Internet helps them to organize their lives. Also, it helps them to overcome their isolation, particularly in patriarchal societies. The Internet also contributes to the rise of the culture of autonomy.

The key for the process of individuation is the construction of autonomy by social actors, who become subjects in the process. They do so by defining their specific projects in interaction with, but not submission to, the institutions of society. This is the case for a minority of individuals, but because of their capacity to lead and mobilize they introduce a new culture in every domain of social life: in work (entrepreneurship), in the media (the active audience), in the Internet (the creative user), in the market (the informed and proactive consumer), in education (students as informed critical thinkers, making possible the new frontier of e-learning and m-learning pedagogy), in health (the patient-centered health management system) in e-government (the informed, participatory citizen), in social movements (cultural change from the grassroots, as in feminism or environmentalism), and in politics (the independent-minded citizen able to participate in self-generated political networks).

There is increasing evidence of the direct relationship between the Internet and the rise of social autonomy. From 2002 to 2007 I directed in Catalonia one of the largest studies ever conducted in Europe on the Internet and society, based on 55,000 interviews, one-third of them face to face (IN3 2002–07). As part of this study, my collaborators and I compared the behavior of Internet users to non-Internet users in a sample of 3,000 people, representative of the population of Catalonia. Because in 2003 only about 40 percent of people were Internet users we could really compare the differences in social behavior for users and non-users, something that nowadays would be more difficult given the 79 percent penetration rate of the Internet in Catalonia. Although the data are relatively old, the findings are not, as more recent studies in other countries (particularly in Portugal) appear to confirm the observed trends. We constructed scales of autonomy in different dimensions. Only between 10 and 20 percent of the population, depending on dimensions, were in the high level of autonomy. But we focused on this active segment of the population to explore the role of the Internet in the construction of autonomy. Using factor analysis we identified six major types of autonomy based on projects of individuals according to their practices:

a) professional development b) communicative autonomy c) entrepreneurship d) autonomy of the body e) sociopolitical participation f) personal, individual autonomy

These six types of autonomous practices were statistically independent among themselves. But each one of them correlated positively with Internet use in statistically significant terms, in a self-reinforcing loop (time sequence): the more one person was autonomous, the more she/he used the web, and the more she/he used the web, the more autonomous she/he became (Castells et al. 2007). This is a major empirical finding. Because if the dominant cultural trend in our society is the search for autonomy, and if the Internet powers this search, then we are moving toward a society of assertive individuals and cultural freedom, regardless of the barriers of rigid social organizations inherited from the Industrial Age. From this Internet-based culture of autonomy have emerged a new kind of sociability, networked sociability, and a new kind of sociopolitical practice, networked social movements and networked democracy. I will now turn to the analysis of these two fundamental trends at the source of current processes of social change worldwide.

The Rise of Social Network Sites on the Internet

Since 2002 (creation of Friendster, prior to Facebook) a new socio-technical revolution has taken place on the Internet: the rise of social network sites where now all human activities are present, from personal interaction to business, to work, to culture, to communication, to social movements, and to politics.

Social Network Sites are web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

(Boyd and Ellison 2007, 2)

Social networking uses, in time globally spent, surpassed e-mail in November 2007. It surpassed e-mail in number of users in July 2009. In terms of users it reached 1 billion by September 2010, with Facebook accounting for about half of it. In 2013 it has almost doubled, particularly because of increasing use in China, India, and Latin America. There is indeed a great diversity of social networking sites (SNS) by countries and cultures. Facebook, started for Harvard-only members in 2004, is present in most of the world, but QQ, Cyworld, and Baidu dominate in China; Orkut in Brazil; Mixi in Japan; etc. In terms of demographics, age is the main differential factor in the use of SNS, with a drop of frequency of use after 50 years of age, and particularly 65. But this is not just a teenager’s activity. The main Facebook U.S. category is in the age group 35–44, whose frequency of use of the site is higher than for younger people. Nearly 60 percent of adults in the U.S. have at least one SNS profile, 30 percent two, and 15 percent three or more. Females are as present as males, except when in a society there is a general gender gap. We observe no differences in education and class, but there is some class specialization of SNS, such as Myspace being lower than FB; LinkedIn is for professionals.

Thus, the most important activity on the Internet at this point in time goes through social networking, and SNS have become the chosen platforms for all kind of activities, not just personal friendships or chatting, but for marketing, e-commerce, education, cultural creativity, media and entertainment distribution, health applications, and sociopolitical activism. This is a significant trend for society at large. Let me explore the meaning of this trend on the basis of the still scant evidence.

Social networking sites are constructed by users themselves building on specific criteria of grouping. There is entrepreneurship in the process of creating sites, then people choose according to their interests and projects. Networks are tailored by people themselves with different levels of profiling and privacy. The key to success is not anonymity, but on the contrary, self-presentation of a real person connecting to real people (in some cases people are excluded from the SNS when they fake their identity). So, it is a self-constructed society by networking connecting to other networks. But this is not a virtual society. There is a close connection between virtual networks and networks in life at large. This is a hybrid world, a real world, not a virtual world or a segregated world.

People build networks to be with others, and to be with others they want to be with on the basis of criteria that include those people who they already know (a selected sub-segment). Most users go on the site every day. It is permanent connectivity. If we needed an answer to what happened to sociability in the Internet world, here it is:

There is a dramatic increase in sociability, but a different kind of sociability, facilitated and dynamized by permanent connectivity and social networking on the web.

Based on the time when Facebook was still releasing data (this time is now gone) we know that in 2009 users spent 500 billion minutes per month. This is not just about friendship or interpersonal communication. People do things together, share, act, exactly as in society, although the personal dimension is always there. Thus, in the U.S. 38 percent of adults share content, 21 percent remix, 14 percent blog, and this is growing exponentially, with development of technology, software, and SNS entrepreneurial initiatives. On Facebook, in 2009 the average user was connected to 60 pages, groups, and events, people interacted per month to 160 million objects (pages, groups, events), the average user created 70 pieces of content per month, and there were 25 billion pieces of content shared per month (web links, news stories, blogs posts, notes, photos). SNS are living spaces connecting all dimensions of people’s experience. This transforms culture because people share experience with a low emotional cost, while saving energy and effort. They transcend time and space, yet they produce content, set up links, and connect practices. It is a constantly networked world in every dimension of human experience. They co-evolve in permanent, multiple interaction. But they choose the terms of their co-evolution.

Thus, people live their physical lives but increasingly connect on multiple dimensions in SNS.

Paradoxically, the virtual life is more social than the physical life, now individualized by the organization of work and urban living.

But people do not live a virtual reality, indeed it is a real virtuality, since social practices, sharing, mixing, and living in society is facilitated in the virtuality, in what I called time ago the “space of flows” (Castells 1996).

Because people are increasingly at ease in the multi-textuality and multidimensionality of the web, marketers, work organizations, service agencies, government, and civil society are migrating massively to the Internet, less and less setting up alternative sites, more and more being present in the networks that people construct by themselves and for themselves, with the help of Internet social networking entrepreneurs, some of whom become billionaires in the process, actually selling freedom and the possibility of the autonomous construction of lives. This is the liberating potential of the Internet made material practice by these social networking sites. The largest of these social networking sites are usually bounded social spaces managed by a company. However, if the company tries to impede free communication it may lose many of its users, because the entry barriers in this industry are very low. A couple of technologically savvy youngsters with little capital can set up a site on the Internet and attract escapees from a more restricted Internet space, as happened to AOL and other networking sites of the first generation, and as could happen to Facebook or any other SNS if they are tempted to tinker with the rules of openness (Facebook tried to make users pay and retracted within days). So, SNS are often a business, but they are in the business of selling freedom, free expression, chosen sociability. When they tinker with this promise they risk their hollowing by net citizens migrating with their friends to more friendly virtual lands.

Perhaps the most telling expression of this new freedom is the transformation of sociopolitical practices on the Internet.

Communication Power: Mass-Self Communication and the Transformation of Politics

Power and counterpower, the foundational relationships of society, are constructed in the human mind, through the construction of meaning and the processing of information according to certain sets of values and interests (Castells 2009).

Ideological apparatuses and the mass media have been key tools of mediating communication and asserting power, and still are. But the rise of a new culture, the culture of autonomy, has found in Internet and mobile communication networks a major medium of mass self-communication and self-organization.

The key source for the social production of meaning is the process of socialized communication. I define communication as the process of sharing meaning through the exchange of information. Socialized communication is the one that exists in the public realm, that has the potential of reaching society at large. Therefore, the battle over the human mind is largely played out in the process of socialized communication. And this is particularly so in the network society, the social structure of the Information Age, which is characterized by the pervasiveness of communication networks in a multimodal hypertext.

The ongoing transformation of communication technology in the digital age extends the reach of communication media to all domains of social life in a network that is at the same time global and local, generic and customized, in an ever-changing pattern.

As a result, power relations, that is the relations that constitute the foundation of all societies, as well as the processes challenging institutionalized power relations, are increasingly shaped and decided in the communication field. Meaningful, conscious communication is what makes humans human. Thus, any major transformation in the technology and organization of communication is of utmost relevance for social change. Over the last four decades the advent of the Internet and of wireless communication has shifted the communication process in society at large from mass communication to mass self-communication. This is from a message sent from one to many with little interactivity to a system based on messages from many to many, multimodal, in chosen time, and with interactivity, so that senders are receivers and receivers are senders. And both have access to a multimodal hypertext in the web that constitutes the endlessly changing backbone of communication processes.

The transformation of communication from mass communication to mass self-communication has contributed decisively to alter the process of social change. As power relationships have always been based on the control of communication and information that feed the neural networks constitutive of the human mind, the rise of horizontal networks of communication has created a new landscape of social and political change by the process of disintermediation of the government and corporate controls over communication. This is the power of the network, as social actors build their own networks on the basis of their projects, values, and interests. The outcome of these processes is open ended and dependent on specific contexts. Freedom, in this case freedom of communicate, does not say anything on the uses of freedom in society. This is to be established by scholarly research. But we need to start from this major historical phenomenon: the building of a global communication network based on the Internet, a technology that embodies the culture of freedom that was at its source.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century there have been multiple social movements around the world that have used the Internet as their space of formation and permanent connectivity, among the movements and with society at large. These networked social movements, formed in the social networking sites on the Internet, have mobilized in the urban space and in the institutional space, inducing new forms of social movements that are the main actors of social change in the network society. Networked social movements have been particularly active since 2010, and especially in the Arab revolutions against dictatorships; in Europe and the U.S. as forms of protest against the management of the financial crisis; in Brazil; in Turkey; in Mexico; and in highly diverse institutional contexts and economic conditions. It is precisely the similarity of the movements in extremely different contexts that allows the formulation of the hypothesis that this is the pattern of social movements characteristic of the global network society. In all cases we observe the capacity of these movements for self-organization, without a central leadership, on the basis of a spontaneous emotional movement. In all cases there is a connection between Internet-based communication, mobile networks, and the mass media in different forms, feeding into each other and amplifying the movement locally and globally.

These movements take place in the context of exploitation and oppression, social tensions and social struggles; but struggles that were not able to successfully challenge the state in other instances of revolt are now powered by the tools of mass self-communication. It is not the technology that induces the movements, but without the technology (Internet and wireless communication) social movements would not take the present form of being a challenge to state power. The fact is that technology is material culture (ideas brought into the design) and the Internet materialized the culture of freedom that, as it has been documented, emerged on American campuses in the 1960s. This culture-made technology is at the source of the new wave of social movements that exemplify the depth of the global impact of the Internet in all spheres of social organization, affecting particularly power relationships, the foundation of the institutions of society. (See case studies and an analytical perspective on the interaction between Internet and networked social movements in Castells 2012.)

The Internet, as all technologies, does not produce effects by itself. Yet, it has specific effects in altering the capacity of the communication system to be organized around flows that are interactive, multimodal, asynchronous or synchronous, global or local, and from many to many, from people to people, from people to objects, and from objects to objects, increasingly relying on the semantic web. How these characteristics affect specific systems of social relationships has to be established by research, and this is what I tried to present in this text. What is clear is that without the Internet we would not have seen the large-scale development of networking as the fundamental mechanism of social structuring and social change in every domain of social life. The Internet, the World Wide Web, and a variety of networks increasingly based on wireless platforms constitute the technological infrastructure of the network society, as the electrical grid and the electrical engine were the support system for the form of social organization that we conceptualized as the industrial society. Thus, as a social construction, this technological system is open ended, as the network society is an open-ended form of social organization that conveys the best and the worse in humankind. Yet, the global network society is our society, and the understanding of its logic on the basis of the interaction between culture, organization, and technology in the formation and development of social and technological networks is a key field of research in the twenty-first century.

We can only make progress in our understanding through the cumulative effort of scholarly research. Only then we will be able to cut through the myths surrounding the key technology of our time. A digital communication technology that is already a second skin for young people, yet it continues to feed the fears and the fantasies of those who are still in charge of a society that they barely understand.

These references are in fact sources of more detailed references specific to each one of the topics analyzed in this text.

Abbate, Janet. A Social History of the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.

Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13, no. 1 (2007).

Cardoso, Gustavo, Angus Cheong, and Jeffrey Cole (eds). World Wide Internet: Changing Societies, Economies and Cultures. Macau: University of Macau Press, 2009.

Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. 3 vols. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996–2003.

———. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

———. Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

———. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012.

Castells, Manuel, Imma Tubella, Teresa Sancho, and Meritxell Roca.

La transición a la sociedad red. Barcelona: Ariel, 2007.

Hilbert, Martin, and Priscilla López. “The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information.” Science 332, no. 6025 (April 1, 2011): pp. 60–65.

Papacharissi, Zizi, ed. The Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Networking Sites. Routledge, 2010.

Rainie. Lee, and Barry Wellman. Networked: The New Social Operating System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.

Trajectory Partnership (Michael Willmott and Paul Flatters). The Information Dividend: Why IT Makes You “Happier.” Swindon: British Informatics Society Limited, 2010. http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/info-dividend-full-report.pdf

Selected Web References.   Used as sources for analysis in the chapter

Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento. “Observatório de Sociedade da Informação e do Conhecimento (OSIC).” http://www.umic.pt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3026&Itemid=167

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. “Features, Press and Policy.” http://www.bcs.org/category/7307

Center for the Digital Future. The World Internet Project International Report. 4th ed. Los Angeles: USC Annenberg School, Center for the Digital Future, 2012. http://www.worldinternetproject.net/_files/_Published/_oldis/770_2012wip_report4th_ed.pdf

ESRC (Economic & Social Research Council). “Papers and Reports.” Virtual Society. http://virtualsociety.sbs.ox.ac.uk/reports.htm

Fundación Orange. “Análisis y Prospectiva: Informe eEspaña.” Fundación Orange. http://fundacionorange.es/fundacionorange/analisisprospectiva.html

Fundación Telefónica. “Informes SI.” Fundación Telefónica. http://sociedadinformacion.fundacion.telefonica.com/DYC/SHI/InformesSI/seccion=1190&idioma=es_ES.do

IN3 (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute). UOC. “Project Internet Catalonia (PIC): An Overview.” Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, 2002–07. http://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic/eng/

International Telecommunication Union. “Annual Reports.” http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/sfo/annual_reports/index.html

Nielsen Company. “Reports.” 2013. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/reports/2013.html?tag=Category:Media+ and+Entertainment

Oxford Internet Surveys. “Publications.” http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/oxis/publications

Pew Internet & American Life Project. “Social Networking.” Pew Internet. http://www.pewinternet.org/Topics/Activities-and-Pursuits/Social-Networking.aspx?typeFilter=5

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What is Wi-Fi and why is it so important?

The ubiquitous wireless technology wi-fi has become indispensable for home networking, public internet connectivity, supporting the internet of things and much, much more..

The term Wi-Fi was created more than two decades ago as a way to make local wireless networking easy to understand for the general public. Today, Wi-Fi technology is ubiquitous, making home and office connectivity without wires available for all, and contributing to an explosion of smart devices.

What is Wi-Fi?

  Wi-Fi is a blanket term for multiple technologies that use the IEEE 802.11 communications standards to create local area networks or LANs .  Wi-Fi-enabled products use radio waves to transmit data and communicate with one another. Initially the technology used the 2.4 GHz frequency, but it has since expanded to 5 GHz, 60 GHz,  and 6 GHz  frequency bands.

Wi-Fi is not the only wireless LAN technology out there, but it’s by far the most popular. As the name implies, a LAN network is relatively small, encompassing a home, store, or (at the larger end) an office building or campus. Wi-Fi thus stands between personal area network technologies like Bluetooth, which connect devices to nearby peripherals, and wireless wide area networks like the city-blanketing 5G networks deployed by the major cellular carriers.

How does Wi-Fi work?

Wi-Fi, at a basic level, works on the same principles that make your radio or over-the-air TV possible. Wi-Fi devices send radio waves to one another—but instead of broadcasting analog audio or video, these waves digitally encode network packets that comply with the Internet Protocol, just like the ones sent over wired Ethernet connections.

Exactly how this information is encoded and decoded by your various devices is extremely complex, and has been refined over the past two decades with techniques like  beamforming  to allow networks to transmit data farther and more quickly, with less power.

The basic components of a Wi-Fi network include:

• A  router , which does the  work of managing the traffic among the devices on the network.
• A  wireless access point  that provides the radio connection between the router and the local wireless devices.
• A  modem  that connects the local network to the wider internet. While not strictly necessary for making the Wi-Fi network work, without it the devices on the network can only talk to each other and not the wider world.

Typically, home users will have all three of these components combined in a single box that you get from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). If you want to cover a larger physical space than the signal from one access point can reach, you might also want to deploy wireless extenders ,  which “echo” the network signal to help reach more distant parts of your home or office. More advanced deployments, particularly in professional settings, might roll out a  mesh network , in which multiple extenders are coordinated to provide better coverage.

It is important to keep in mind that just connecting to a Wi-Fi network doesn’t get you to the internet without a modem that in turn is connected to an ISP. In other words, Wi-Fi alone isn’t enough to get you online. Those modems can connect to the internet in a variety of ways; the most common today are cable or fiber.

Some modems are themselves wireless, although they use technologies other than Wi-Fi to make that internet connection. Some cellular providers will sell gadgets called wireless hotspots that serve as both a wireless modem and a Wi-Fi router and access point, and most modern cell phones can also serve this purpose, although cellular carriers often limit the amount of data you can use in this way.

No matter how you connect, the router serves the key role in mediating between all the devices on your local network and internet. While you may have many gadgets, from the perspective of the outside world, they all share a single public-facing  IP address . It’s up the router to send any inbound network traffic to the correct device on the internal network.

What is 802.11 and how is it related to Wi-Fi?

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers maintains a number of industry standards. 802 is the number designating the family of standards governing how LANs work, and 802.11 is a subfamily dedicated to wireless LANs. The 802.11 standards describe in detail how devices should communicate wirelessly, and any device that adheres to these standards can communicate with others that do the same.

There have been a host of 802.11 standards, each different but generally backwards compatible, since the first version rolled out in the late 1990s. Oddly, 802.11b was developed before 802.11a, and then it evolved into 802.11g, 802.11n, and other letters.

Obviously, this sort of  alphabet soup  wasn’t very consumer friendly. That’s where the overarching term Wi-Fi comes in.

What does “Wi-Fi” stand for?

As 802.11-compatible devices started entering the marketplace, major device manufacturers and networking companies such as 3Com, Lucent, and Nokia formed the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) to ensure that they all could interoperate. In 2000, the group decided that it would be best to come up with a unifying brand signifying compatibility, rather than forcing users to memorize which letters they were using on a particular device to see if it would connect.

There has been some controversy over the years on the issue of whether Wi-Fi is short for wireless fidelity. Phil Belanger, a founding member of the Wi-Fi Alliance who presided over the selection process says the group hired a company called Interbrand to develop the name. They landed on Wi-Fi ,  which was meant to evoke a hi-fi stereo system, but did not otherwise have an inherent meaning.

Belanger says some of the more literal-minded members of WECA (which soon rebranded itself as the  Wi-Fi Alliance ) insisted on using the tagline “The Standard for Wireless Fidelity” for a while, but the term “Wi-Fi” came first and “wireless fidelity” was a back-formation. In truth, Wi-Fi doesn’t stand for anything.

At any rate, in April 2000, the group announced the first set of Wi-Fi Certified products, starting with IEEE 802.11b. As the technology grew and became more ubiquitous on millions of different devices, the term Wi-Fi became more about the general wireless LAN technology and less about the interoperability certification.

Now more than 20 years later, there are more than 15 billion Wi-Fi products in use around the world, according to the alliance. In fact, the Wi-Fi brand has become so strongly associated with the 802.11 standards that the IEEE has begun using it in their own versioning of the underlying standards. So, for example, technology compliant with 802.11ax is called Wi-Fi 6.

How to secure Wi-Fi connections

  As Wi-Fi grew in popularity, so did the ability for hackers and other bad actors to take advantage. Initially, most Wi-Fi networks were open, with data traveling over the air unsecured. This posed a problem for companies concerned that an employee connecting from a public coffee shop could be leaking data to anyone else in the room who had a Wi-Fi receiver.

The Wi-Fi Alliance addressed by adding different security protocols to the standard under the Wi-Fi Protected Access banner, including the  latest, WPA3 . Users connecting to secured access points through properly configured WPA and a VPN connection are now generally secure from some of the technology’s earlier open-network issues.

What devices can use Wi-Fi?

Another reason for the technology’s success has been the exponential growth of devices where Wi-Fi can be installed including home appliances, TVs, video game consoles, and smart watches, to name a few. The growth of the internet of things (IoT) can be traced to the low cost, powerful performance, and reliability of Wi-Fi networks.

Wi-Fi 7 and beyond: Why Wi-Fi still matters

Now more than 20 years after its inception, Wi-Fi continues to grow. In addition to supporting short-distance connectivity (such as 60 GHz offerings for technologies such as virtual reality), the Wi-Fi Alliance is working on  Wi-Fi 7 , expected to arrive sometime in 2024. Thanks to larger channels, increased quadratic amplitude modulation, and multi-access point operation, Wi-Fi 7 promises a truly radical increase in data speed and throughput.

Its maximum theoretical speed is a mind-boggling 46 Gbps, but even the much-reduced estimate for real-world performance, at 6 Gbps, is faster than Gigabit ethernet. Wi-Fi has already replaced wired networking for most everyday purposes, and at those speeds it may be able to displace Ethernet completely, even for high-traffic purposes like connection to cloud services. With thousands of products capable of supporting Wi-Fi and a bright and faster future not far off, the technology is here to stay.

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800 Words Essay On Internet in English for Students

The internet has transformed the world in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. It has revolutionized how we communicate, access information, conduct business, and even how we entertain ourselves. The internet has become an integral part of our daily lives, and it’s hard to imagine a world without it.

At its core, the Internet is a vast network of interconnected computers and servers that allows for the exchange of information and data across the globe. It was originally conceived as a way for researchers and scientists to share information and collaborate on projects, but it has since evolved into a ubiquitous platform that has permeated every aspect of modern life.

One of the most significant impacts of the internet has been on communication. Before the internet, communication was limited by geography and time zones. People had to rely on physical mail, telephone calls, or face-to-face meetings to communicate with one another. The internet has made communication instantaneous and borderless. With the rise of email, instant messaging, video conferencing, and social media platforms, people can communicate with each other from anywhere in the world, at any time.

The internet has also revolutionized the way we access information. In the past, people had to rely on physical libraries, books, and other printed materials to access information. Today, with the internet, a wealth of information is available at our fingertips. From online encyclopedias to news websites, academic journals, and online databases, the internet has made it possible to access information on virtually any topic imaginable.

Another significant impact of the internet has been on the economy and the way we conduct business. The rise of e-commerce has made it possible for businesses to reach a global market and sell their products and services online. Online shopping has become increasingly popular, and many traditional brick-and-mortar stores have had to adapt to this new reality by establishing an online presence.

Furthermore, the internet has enabled the rise of the gig economy, where people can work as freelancers or contractors for multiple clients and projects simultaneously. This has created new opportunities for individuals to earn a living and has allowed businesses to access a global talent pool.

The internet has also had a profound impact on education. Online learning platforms and distance education programs have made it possible for students to access educational resources and attend classes from anywhere in the world. This has opened up new opportunities for people who may not have had access to traditional educational institutions due to geographical or financial constraints.

However, the internet has also brought with it a number of challenges and concerns. One of the biggest concerns is privacy and security. With so much personal information being shared online, there is a risk of data breaches and cyber attacks. Companies and individuals need to be vigilant about protecting their personal information and implementing strong cybersecurity measures.

Another concern is the spread of misinformation and fake news. The internet has made it easier for anyone to publish and share information, regardless of its accuracy or credibility. This has led to the proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories, which can have serious consequences for individuals and society as a whole.

There is also concern about the impact of the internet on mental health and well-being. The constant exposure to social media and the pressure to curate a perfect online persona can lead to feelings of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Additionally, the addictive nature of the internet and the constant stream of information can contribute to decreased attention spans and difficulty focusing on tasks.

Despite these challenges, the internet has proven to be an invaluable tool that has transformed the way we live, work, and interact with the world around us. It has opened up new opportunities for communication, education, and economic growth, and has made it possible for people to connect and collaborate in ways that were previously unimaginable.

As we move forward, it is important to address the challenges and concerns surrounding the internet while also embracing its potential for innovation and progress. This may involve implementing stronger cybersecurity measures, promoting digital literacy and critical thinking skills, and encouraging responsible and ethical use of the internet.

In conclusion, the internet has had a profound impact on virtually every aspect of modern life. It has revolutionized communication, education, business, and access to information. While it has brought with it a number of challenges and concerns, the internet has proven to be an invaluable tool that has transformed the way we live and interact with the world around us. As we continue to navigate the digital age, it is important to embrace the opportunities that the internet provides while also addressing its challenges and promoting responsible and ethical use.

Uses of Internet

In the 21st century, the internet has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, revolutionizing the way we connect, learn, work, and entertain ourselves. Its multifaceted uses have permeated every aspect of society, bringing about unprecedented convenience and opportunities.

Communication stands out as one of the internet’s most significant uses. Instant messaging, video calls, and social media platforms have transcended geographical barriers, allowing people to stay connected with friends and family across the globe. The internet has turned the world into a global village, fostering a sense of unity and understanding among diverse cultures.

Education has undergone a remarkable transformation due to the internet. Online courses, tutorials, and educational resources have made learning accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Students can pursue degrees, acquire new skills, and access a wealth of information at their fingertips, democratizing education and breaking down traditional barriers to learning.

The internet has also redefined the way we work. Remote collaboration tools, cloud computing, and virtual offices have become essential components of the modern workplace. This shift has not only increased efficiency but has also opened up new opportunities for freelancers and remote workers, contributing to the rise of the gig economy.

In the realm of information, the internet has become an unparalleled resource. Search engines allow us to access vast amounts of information on any topic imaginable. This democratization of information has empowered individuals, encouraging critical thinking and facilitating informed decision-making.

Entertainment has undergone a digital revolution, with streaming services, online gaming, and social media platforms providing endless avenues for amusement. The internet has not only transformed how we consume content but has also given rise to new forms of artistic expression and creativity.

In conclusion, the internet’s uses are multifaceted and far-reaching, impacting every facet of our lives. From connecting people across the globe to revolutionizing education, work, and entertainment, the internet continues to be a transformative force, shaping the present and influencing the future. As we navigate the digital landscape, it is essential to harness the potential of the internet responsibly, ensuring that it remains a force for positive change in the years to come.

Convenience Due to Internet

The advent of the internet has ushered in an era of unprecedented convenience, transforming the way we live, work, and interact with the world. In our fast-paced lives, the internet has become a cornerstone of efficiency and ease, offering a multitude of conveniences that have reshaped our daily routines.

Communication is perhaps the most obvious and impactful convenience brought about by the internet. Instant messaging, email, and social media platforms have revolutionized the way we connect with others. Whether it’s staying in touch with loved ones, collaborating with colleagues, or reaching out to friends across the globe, the internet has made communication instantaneous and seamless.

The convenience of online shopping has fundamentally altered the retail landscape. With just a few clicks, consumers can browse, compare prices, and purchase a vast array of products from the comfort of their homes. The rise of e-commerce platforms has not only made shopping more convenient but has also introduced the concept of doorstep delivery, saving time and eliminating the need for physical store visits.

Information retrieval has been transformed by the internet’s vast repository of knowledge. Search engines provide instant access to information on any conceivable topic, enabling users to quickly find answers, conduct research, and stay informed. This ease of information retrieval has empowered individuals, making knowledge more accessible than ever before.

The workplace has undergone a paradigm shift with the internet, enabling remote work and flexible schedules. Online collaboration tools, cloud computing, and virtual communication platforms have made it possible for individuals to work from virtually anywhere, reducing the constraints of traditional office settings and commuting.

Entertainment has also become infinitely more convenient through streaming services, online gaming, and digital media platforms. The ability to access a diverse range of content on-demand has given consumers unprecedented control over their entertainment choices, eliminating the need to adhere to fixed schedules or physical media.

In conclusion, the internet has woven a tapestry of convenience into the fabric of our lives. From streamlined communication and effortless online shopping to boundless information access and flexible work arrangements, the conveniences offered by the internet have become integral to our modern existence. As we navigate this digital landscape, the ongoing evolution of internet technologies continues to enhance and redefine the meaning of convenience in our interconnected world.

Also Read: Rabindranath Tagore Essay in English For Students 500+ Words Essay on Mother Teresa in English For Students Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Essay in English For Students APJ Abdul Kalam Essay For Students: Check 500 Words Essay

Essay On Internet- FAQs

What is internet short essay.

In the modern time, internet has become is one of the most powerful and interesting tools all across the world. The Internet is a network of networks and collection of many services and resources which benefits us in various ways. Using internet we can access World Wide Web from any place.

What is Internet in 150 words?

The internet is the most recent man-made creation that connects the world. The world has narrowed down after the invention of the internet. It has demolished all boundaries, which were the barriers between people and has made everything accessible. The internet is helpful to us in different ways.

What is internet 100 words?

A. The internet, a recent man-made marvel, has brought the world closer. It has shattered all barriers and made everything accessible. The internet serves us in countless ways, from sharing information with people across the world to staying connected with our loved ones.

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Essay On Internet for Students and Children

500+ words essay on internet.

We live in the age of the internet. Also, it has become an important part of our life that we can’t live without it. Besides, the internet is an invention of high-end science and modern technology . Apart from that, we are connected to internet 24×7. Also, we can send big and small messages and information faster than ever. In this essay on the Internet, we are going to discuss various things related to the internet.

Reach of Internet

It is very difficult to estimate the area that the internet cover. Also, every second million people remain connected to it with any problem or issue. Apart from that, just like all the things the internet also has some good and bad effect on the life of people. So the first thing which we have to do is learn about the good and bad effect of the internet.

Good effects of the internet mean all those things that the internet make possible. Also, these things make our life easier and safer.

Bad effects of the internet mean all those things that we can no longer do because of the internet. Also, these things cause trouble for oneself and others too.

You can access in any corner of the world. Also, it is very easy to use and manage. In today’s world, we cannot imagine our life without it.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Uses Of Internet

From the time it first came into existence until now the internet has completed a long journey. Also, during this journey, the internet has adopted many things and became more user-friendly and interactive. Besides, every big and small things are available on internet and article or material that you require can be obtainable from internet.

Tim Berners-Lee can be called one of the main father of internet as he invented/discovered the WWW (World Wide Web) which is used on every website. Also, there are millions of pages and website on the internet that it will take you years to go through all of them.

The Internet can be used to do different things like you can learn, teach, research, write, share, receive, e-mail , explore, and surf the internet.

Read Essay on Technology here

Convenience Due To Internet

Because of internet, our lives have become more convenient as compared to the times when we don’t have internet. Earlier, we have to stand in queues to send mails (letters), for withdrawing or depositing money, to book tickets, etc. but after the dawn of the internet, all these things become quite easy. Also, we do not have to waste our precious time standing in queues.

Also, the internet has contributed a lot to the environment as much of the offices (government and private), school and colleges have become digital that saves countless paper.

Although, there is no doubt that the internet had made our life easier and convenient but we can’t leave the fact that it has caused many bigger problems in the past. And with the speed, we are becoming addict to it a day in will come when it will become our basic necessity.

{ “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [ { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What are the limitation of internet?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Although internet can help you with anything but there are certain limitation to it. First of it does not have a physical appearance. Secondly, it does not have emotions and thirdly, it can’t send you to a place where you can’t go (physically).” } }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What is the ideal age for using internet?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Nowadays everybody from small kids to adult is internet addicts. So it is difficult to decide an ideal age for using internet. However, according to researches using internet from an early age can cause problems in the child so internet usage of small children should be controlled or banned.” } } ] }

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Essay on Internet: Samples in 100, 200, and 300 Words

• Updated on  
• Mar 8, 2024

On this page, we will provide some samples of how to write an Internet essay.

The age of internet is dominating the world. Individuals, community groups, organisations, and even governments rely on the internet for their needs. The robust speed at which the internet has influenced our lives has been remarkable. Today, anybody can have access to the internet and the online services available. All you need is a digital device like a desktop, laptop or cell phone to use the internet.

According to a 2020 census, 59.6% of the global population uses the internet. These uses of the internet can depend on a person’s needs and interests. The Internet can be used for hundreds of activities, some of which are social networking, education and research, e-commerce, communication, business, collaboration, entertainment, etc.

Also Read: 200+ Essay Topics for School Students in English

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Internet in 100 Words
• 2 Essay on Internet in 200 Words
• 3 Essay on Internet in 300 Words
• 4 How to Score High in Essay Writing?
• 5 Paragraph on Internet in 100 Worlds

Essay on Internet in 100 Words

The Internet, a sprawling network of interconnected devices and data, has redefined how humanity interacts, learns, and progresses. Born from ARPANET in the 1960s, it evolved into an indispensable tool that facilitates communication, access to information, and commerce. With the World Wide Web’s emergence, it transcended mere data exchange, becoming a repository of knowledge, entertainment, and opportunities. However, its influence brings both benefits and challenges, from online education to cybersecurity threats. The Internet is a testament to human ingenuity and its potential to shape our connected future.

Also Read – Essay on Waste Management

Essay on Internet in 200 Words

The Internet, a technological marvel born from the minds of visionaries, has grown into a global phenomenon that touches every facet of our lives. Its roots trace back to ARPANET’s inception in the 1960s when the revolutionary concept of interconnected computers was born. This early network laid the groundwork for the modern Internet, enabling computers to share data and communicate over vast distances. In the subsequent decades, this technology evolved, leading to the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in the late 1980s.

Today, the Internet serves as a digital frontier that transcends geographical boundaries. It provides access to a staggering wealth of information, entertainment, and services. From social networking and e-commerce to online education and remote work, its applications are diverse and far-reaching. Moreover, the Internet’s impact on communication cannot be understated, as it has transformed how people interact, fostering connections and collaborations across the globe.

However, this technological marvel also presents challenges. The prevalence of misinformation, cybercrimes, and privacy breaches remind us of the Internet’s dual nature. Striking a balance between its advantages and disadvantages is imperative as we navigate this digital landscape.

Also Read – Essay on Exam Stress

Essay on Internet in 300 Words

The Internet, a monumental achievement in the world of technology, has revolutionized the way we live, work, and communicate. The journey began with ARPANET, a project initiated by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1960s to create a network that could withstand disruptions. This laid the foundation for modern networking protocols, paving the way for the Internet we know today. The turning point arrived in the late 1980s with the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee, which transformed the Internet into a user-friendly platform accessible to people worldwide.

The Internet’s impact on society is profound. It has democratized information, enabling individuals to access an unprecedented volume of knowledge. Online platforms offer education opportunities, from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to virtual classrooms. The rise of e-commerce has reshaped the retail landscape, allowing consumers to shop with convenience and choice. Moreover, the Internet has fostered connections, facilitating global collaboration, and allowing for the rapid dissemination of ideas.

However, this digital revolution is not without challenges. Cybersecurity threats loom large, with cybercrimes like hacking and identity theft on the rise. The Internet’s role in the spread of misinformation has raised concerns about the credibility of information available online. The addictive nature of social media has also prompted discussions about its impact on mental health and social interactions. The Internet’s influence on society is intricate and multi-faceted, touching upon every aspect of human existence. It has democratized information, transformed commerce, and reshaped how we connect and communicate. While challenges like cyber threats and misinformation persist, harnessing the Internet’s potential for positive change is within our grasp. By fostering digital literacy, promoting ethical behaviour, and leveraging technology for the greater good, we can ensure that the Internet continues to be a force for progress and connectivity.

How to Score High in Essay Writing?

Curating a competitive essay requires the following approach-

• Analyze the essay prompt to grasp its essence and requirements. Ensure your essay addresses the key points while maintaining coherence.
• Devote time to planning. Outline your essay’s structure, including an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Each paragraph should have a clear focus.
• Begin with a captivating hook that grabs the reader’s attention. Provide context and a clear thesis statement that outlines the essay’s main arguments.
• Each paragraph should present a single idea supported by evidence and examples. Transition smoothly between paragraphs to maintain a logical flow.
• Support your arguments with credible sources, statistics, anecdotes, or real-world examples. This adds depth and authenticity to your essay.
• Write clear and concise sentences. Use transition words to connect ideas and ensure a smooth reading experience.
• Address potential counterarguments and refute them logically. This showcases your understanding of the topic and strengthens your position.
• Summarize your main points, restate your thesis, and provide a thought-provoking closing statement. Avoid introducing new ideas here.
• Thoroughly revise your essay for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Check for clarity, coherence, and overall impact.
• Regular practice is essential for improving your essay writing skills. Seek feedback from peers or instructors to identify areas for improvement.

Paragraph on Internet in 100 Worlds

Essays foster critical thinking, improve communication skills, and enhance creativity. They provide a platform to express ideas and opinions effectively.

Practice is key. Start by brainstorming ideas, creating outlines, and proofreading your work. Reading diverse essays can also provide insights.

Absolutely! Personal experiences add authenticity and depth to your essays. However, ensure they are relevant to the topic.

A good introduction should grab the reader’s attention, provide context, and present a clear thesis statement.

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We hope that this essay blog on the Internet helps. For more amazing daily reads related to essay writing , stay tuned with Leverage Edu .

Manasvi Kotwal

Manasvi's flair in writing abilities is derived from her past experience of working with bootstrap start-ups, Advertisement and PR agencies as well as freelancing. She's currently working as a Content Marketing Associate at Leverage Edu to be a part of its thriving ecosystem.

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Essay on Internet Uses For Students

500 + words internet essay.

The internet is described as a global network of computer systems interconnected and following the internet security protocol. However, have you ever considered why the internet is important? This 500+ Words Essay on internet advantages and disadvantages will help students ace essay writing during exams.

A combination of high-end science and advanced technology, the internet is a viral invention. Here, in an essay on the internet, students can learn about the uses and impact of the internet.

Why the Internet Is Important

The internet has undergone significant development from the time of its birth to the present. Over a period of time, the internet has become more interactive and user-friendly. It has also helped man in day-to-day transactions and interactions. The Internet is widely used for numerous functions such as learning, teaching, research, writing, sharing content or data, e-mails, job hunting, playing games, listening to music, watching videos, exploring and finally surfing the internet. Meanwhile, though it makes life easy for people, the internet also comes with a lot of pros and cons. Find the advantages and disadvantages of the internet from this essay.

Also read: History of Internet

Essay on Advantages of Internet

Read this essay on internet advantages to know the effects of using the internet. Look for the points mentioned below.

• The internet has helped reduce the usage of paper and paperwork to a large extent by computerising offices, schools, NGOs, industries and much more.
• Internet helps to provide updated information and news from all over the world
• Education, business and travel have been thriving with the growth of the Internet
• The internet is of high educational and entertainment value
• The internet makes access to public resources, libraries and textbooks much easier
• The internet makes it easy by reducing the time and energy taken to do work
• Work has become more efficient, quick and accurate
• Meetings and conferences are made easier with video calls and other brilliant tools

Apart from all these, as mentioned in the above paragraph on Internet uses, it helps carry out banking activities, exchange information, shop for various goods and more.

Essay on Internet Disadvantages

Despite the use of the internet and its positives, there are also some internet disadvantages. Continuous use of the internet can affect our lifestyle and health. Let us check out the disadvantages of the internet from this paragraph.

• Over-dependence on the internet can lead to many health problems
• People tend to spend more of their productive time doing nothing but browsing
• Even if the internet is now used extensively at work, overuse of the internet could lead to depression
• Quality time with friends and relatives is primarily reduced due to the use of the internet
• Cybercrime has also increased as internet security and privacy are compromised

Thus, we have seen the uses of the internet and its impact on students and working professionals. While we know that overuse of the internet should be avoided, we also have to acknowledge that the internet has still not been exploited to its full potential, despite its massive growth. In conclusion, we can state that to make internet use more comfortable and pleasurable, school students should be taught about the pros and cons of using the internet, thus ensuring that they can stand up against cybercrime and ensure safety.

Also Read: Social Media Essay | Essay on Women Empowerment | Essay On Constitution of India

Frequently asked Questions on Internet Essay

What is the internet.

The internet is a global system of interconnected computers and this system uses a standardised Internet Protocol suite for communication and sharing information.

What are the top 5 uses of the Internet?

The Internet is mostly used by people to send emails and to search on any topic. It can be used to download large files. People depend on the internet for electronic news and magazines these days. A lot of people, especially the young generation use it to play interactive games and for entertainment.

What is WiFi?

WiFi is the latest wireless technology used to connect computers, tablets, smartphones and other electronic devices to the internet.

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Wireless Internet

By: Wendy   •  Essay  •  578 Words  •  February 23, 2010  •  859 Views

Join now to read essay Wireless Internet

By 2004, the wireless subscriber base worldwide is expected to reach 1.4 billion users, and approximately 300 million users will be accessing the Internet from some form of wireless appliance. The race is on, and Nortel Networks have first-mover advantage.

Nortel Networks already demonstrated wireless applications at speeds more than 25 times faster than today's industry standard. Recently, Herschel Shosteck Associates ranked Nortel Networks first in Wireless Internet infrastructure strategy, and The Yankee Group ranked Nortel Networks first in next-generation Wireless Internet architecture.

More than 75 percent of North American and 50 percent of European backbone Internet traffic travels across Nortel optical networking equipment. Now Nortel Networks helping service providers deliver the unconstrained access and high bandwidth multimedia content second Wave of eBusiness customers demand.

Nortel Networks 3G (Third Generation) networks provide wireless operators with faster time-to-market and greater profitability. Nortel Networks solutions offer clear migration paths, allowing service providers to leverage their existing network investments while upgrading. And they work collaboratively with Nortel Networks customers, achieving the fastest time-to-market possible.

Wireless Internet gives emerging wireless service providers a powerful opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competition based on the ability to rapidly create and deliver profitable next-generation Wireless Internet services while maximizing the efficiency of their networks. Wireless Internet brings value to service providers by: Helping generate profits, quickly. Reducing the time required to design and deploy new Wireless Internet services. It's enabling new revenues quickly and assuring a positive return on their network investment. Wireless Internet also improving performance, at reduced costs by facilitating the fast identification and repair of network faults, the proactive optimization of network performance, and the acceleration of the service-provisioning process. Nortel Networks also Evolving and growing with service providers' needs by supporting multiple wireless network technologies, spanning multiple wireless-network generations, and building cross-domain management capabilities on a single, scalable, and open platform.

Nortel Networks' state-of-the-art DMS-100 Wireless product is a multi-functional switching system that integrates the industry's most respected DMS-100/200 (local/toll) wireline and DMS Mobile Telephone