Understanding the Evolution of the Wireless Internet

It's amazing to think about the amount of technological leaps that have been made in such a short amount of time regarding technology that relates directly to accessing the internet. Nowhere in the history of technology has such a user-intensive thing as a personal computer gone from being extremely rare to pretty much ubiquitous depending on a family's income. That's not because of word processing software or games, but rather, the boom in home computer use is due pretty much exclusively to the internet.

Originally, the only way to get online was by plugging your computer's modem into the phone line, and using a company that manually dialed up for you. This was a long way before wireless internet, and connections were extremely slow. Anyone who remembers downloading a song off Napster knows how slow this was. But as the internet grew quickly, better methods of connection were created, from cable and DSL to T1 and T3, all of which also depended on cables that could send significantly more data than a conventional phone line.

Then, came the wireless internet, which meant that no longer did your computer have to be directly plugged into the source of internet. Now, you just needed the computer to have a card built in or plugged in so that the wireless router could make its connection and beam the signal. Not just in people's homes, this technology grew and got popular in public spaces, like common areas of colleges and coffee shops and business centers.

For some who are uninitiated, this might seem like the last big step in the internet, but that's just not the case. Two different emerging factors are currently taking technology in a whole new direction, and mostly by uniting them. You see, the way that many people access the internet now is actually not through a computer, but through a phone. Not for heavy-duting surfing or extensive business preparations, but for the one-off email right before the plane takes off or to quickly check the status of something. The only reason it's possible to check email that quickly is because most networks upgraded to 3G technology, which means the ability to send and receive a lot more data.

Now, here comes the next step. With 4G, it's possible for the select companies that can offer the service to make things like streaming video over an iPhone or Blackberry much easier, more efficient, and hassle-free. So that's great news if you're bored on the train and want to give the kids something to entertain them at the airport, but how can it make the connection over to computers? Wouldn't it be far more helpful for the evolution in wireless internet to include the internet on a more traditional device, like a laptop?

That's where the true leap of technology is coming in, the one that will significantly change the way the internet works. With WiMax, any computer can be turned into a mobile device that always has internet, because instead of depending on a close-by router to pick up signals, WiMax utilizes the 4G network to beam internet coverage wherever you turn your computer on. Whether it's riding in a plane, sitting at a rest stop on a road trip, or riding the train to grandma's house, getting on the internet is soon going to be as simple as turning your computer on anywhere in the country. Now that's progress.

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