A Signal Of The Times

Wi-Fi will make another leap forward this year.

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It’s hard to imagine a world without Wi-Fi. It paved the way for the wireless Internet connectivity that most of us appreciate we cannot live without at work, leisure or at home.

Crediting one single person with the invention of Wi-Fi is challenging. A good place to start is with the creation of the 802.11 standards (radio frequency) used for broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal. Vic Hayes is credited as the ‘father of Wi-Fi’ because he chaired the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) committee that created these standards in 1997. Before the public even heard of the phenomenon, Hayes established the standards that would make Wi-Fi feasible. A recent decision was made to simplify the naming to Wi-Fi n, the current standard being Wi-Fi 5.

Wi-Fi 6 will be rolling out soon. What does this all mean for the end-user?