20 Interesting & Weird Facts about WiFi You Should Know

We are going to talk about Facts About Wifi But, Can you imagine life without WiFi technology? Well, it has become almost impossible to live without it. Although relatively new WiFi has become a part and parcel of our lives due to the ease of accessibility that it brings about in the connectivity which we so much require. Wi-Fi has done away with the extensive and ugly cabling that was required earlier on and added incomparable ease to internet access.

The number of devices that is Wi-Fi enabled has increased to a large extent. Connecting to the internet and accessing information at home or in public places have become much easier due to the availability of Wi-Fi.

In this article, we shared with you twenty such interesting WiFi facts, which probably you have not really thought much about.

20 Facts About Wifi Technology You Probably Don’t Know :

1) Wi-Fi was originally named IEEE 802.11 when it was first introduced in 1990. The name was dropped later as it felt it didn’t sound catchy enough. Hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years now.

2) Wi-Fi is not an abbreviated form of any other name or term. It was created by the brand consulting firm as a pun to the word “Hi-Fi” meaning “high-fidelity”. When Wi-Fi was proposed it was found to sound just right and was introduced commercially for the first time in August 1999.

3) The first Wi-Fi logo designed by Inter brand was based on the Chinese symbol of yin-yang which refers to the existence of dual forces in harmony.

4) The symbol of a dot with curved lives radiating from it indicating that you are within Wi-Fi range was actually a Japanese sticker creation.

5) It is believed that Wi-Fi was first launched in 1971 in Hawaii and was called ALOHAnet developed by the University of Hawaii. Yes, it is that old.

6) AT&T and NCR Corporation developed WaveLAN which is believed to be the true precursor of Wi-Fi. It was followed by the IEEE 802.11 which was developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

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7) Did you know that 20th June 2019 is slated to be celebrated as the World Wi-Fi day?

8) The total number of public hot spots offering free Wi-Fi access will increase to 64.2 million on a global scale by 2020. It is fast approaching!

9) Also, about 4.9% of the GDP internationally is generated by mobile technologies that depend largely on Wi-Fi accessibility.

10) Hard to believe but more than 12 billion Wi-Fi enabled devices were believed to be in use at the end of the year 2018.

11) Moreover, Lithuania is believed to have the fastest Wi-Fi at a average speed of 16Mbps.

12) The NextGen Wi-Fi is slated to be deployed by 2020 which comes with a crazy speed of 10Gbps. This, it is hoped will help to support the growing number of Wi-Fi devices at home, office or at public locations with even faster speed and with an improved Quality of experience (QoE).

13) Wi-Fi uses radio waves to send through signals hence it is susceptible to interference. Some of the most common interference devices of objects are microwaves, cell phones, blue-tooth and water. So, if you want to enhance the service then it would be a good idea to either turn off these interfering devices or move the router away from the kind of stuffs that you cannot move.

14) Wi-Fi operates mostly in the 2.4ghz band frequencies which is a common band for many wireless devices including bluetooth devices. This means it has to compete with all these devices for the bandwidth hence interference is a major issue.

15) 5.0ghz band though existent is not usually a selected band mainly due to the fact that 2.4 is usually a stronger band and the device automatically latches on to the band. However, 5.0ghz cannot penetrate objects as well as 2.4ghz and not every device can support this higher band. Ideally, 5.0ghz can send and receive data very fast over a short distance only unlike 2.4ghz which can send and receive data over long distances but at a slower speed.

16) A common Wi-Fi signal can travel 30m if there is no interference in its path. With the use of Wi-Fi range extenders, Wi-Fi signals can travel up to an incredible distance of about 275km.

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17) Contrary to the various health hazards that are cited because of the use of Wi-Fi, it actually is much safer than the mobile signals and other forms of radio waves that we are surrounded in every day.

18) Another interesting fact about Wi-Fi is that with the introduction of the Internet of Things or IoT enabled devices, Wi-Fi is becoming indispensable for modern life as most of these devices depend on Wi-Fi to function seamlessly. By the year 2020, about 25 billion devices will depend upon Wi-Fi to function.

19) The router or Access Point does not determine the Wi-Fi strength it is instead decided by the Communication Commission of your country. The Communications Commission sets the power limits of the Wi-Fi devices. So ideally whatever devices that you install the range of performance will be similar.

20) Wireless routers initially used simple protocols which made them very vulnerable to security breaches like hacking. The WAP2 is the most recent Wi-Fi Protected Access standard that is highly secure. The WAP2 was further enhanced with the AEC algorithm making it the most highly ranked security protocol.

So, these were some twenty awesome and interesting facts about WiFi technology which you must have been aware of by know. Wi-fi has undoubtedly become an integral part of our day to day life. It is set to take a more prominent role as we move forward to an Internet-dependent life with a whole lot of things being managed by the internet.

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The connectivity that has been brought about by Wi-Fi is unparalleled. Digitization of each and every facet of our lives has stepped up the development of the world by many decades. Though some shortcomings will keep propping up as the expectations rise, and loopholes discovered to bend the technology too many unimaginable extents as it is developing further. And the future definitely is going to be exciting with the introduction of the NextGen Wi-Fi technology.