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Cutting the cord: how the world’s engineers built Wi-Fi
Wireless networking has exploded over the last 15 years, but how
do our …  Spreading the spectrum to avoid industry, science, and
medicine  The whole point of a local area network (LAN) is that
everyone gets to build their own local system without having to
coordinate with anyone else. But for radio spectrum, tight
regulation is the norm in order to avoid undue interference
between different users. Wi-Fi sidesteps the need for such
regulation, and the need to pay for radio spectrum, by shacking
up with microwave ovens, cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, and
much more in the unlicensed 2.4GHz industrial, scientific, and
medical (ISM) band.  The original 802.11 specification published
in 1997 worked at speeds of 1 and 2Mbps over infrared—though
this was never implemented—or by using microwave radio on the
2.4GHz ISM band. Users of the ISM band are required to use a
spread spectrum technique to avo