WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY

Being researched

WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY. According to Encyclopedia.com: “Wireless technology provides the ability to communicate between two or more entities over distances without the use of wires or cables of any sort. This includes communications using radio frequency (RF) as well as infrared (IR) waves.”

Livewire.com says: “Wireless’ is a broad term that encompasses all sorts of technologies and devices that transmit data over the air rather than over wires, including cellular communications, networking between computers with wireless adapters and wireless computer accessories.”

The term may also refer to devices that draw power without using cables. A smartphone that we can recharge without wires has wireless technology in it. However, in most cases, the term refers to communicating without wires or cables.

Wireless technologies in one form or another have been around for a long time. It all started with German physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) when he discovered electromagnetic waves. The first wireless conversation ever occurred in 1880 when Charles Sumner Tainter and Alexander Graham Bell invented the photophone, a telephone that conducted audio conversation over modulated light beams. They patented the photophone that year.

Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, pioneered work on long-distance radio transmission. In 1909, Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun shared the Nobel Prize in physics for the development of wireless telegraphy.

During the 20th century, many types of wireless technologies emerged. The radio, which Marconi invented, and television, for example, receive broadcast communications without using wires. Satellites are also examples of wireless technology. Most people today think of laptops, tablets, smartphones, and modems (routers) if you ask them about wireless technology.

There are currently two main types of wireless technology. Wi-fi is a technology that allows tablets, video game consoles, printers, and smartphones to communicate with the Internet. Medical devices, laptops, and digital audio players also use Wi-Fi. The term ‘Wi-Fi’ emerged in the 1990s from the words ‘Wireless’ plus ‘Fi,’ which was an arbitrary second element, after ‘Hi-Fi.’ People often mistakenly interpret the term as a short form of ‘Wireless Fidelity.’ Cellular networks (mobile phone networks) allow electronic devices to communicate over long distances. One person in, for example, Alaska, could talk to another person in Australia using their smartphones. Cellular networks allow them to do that. (1)

Kevin Lynch, president of Net-Smart, a local company announced in June, 2001 that his company planned to provide wireless Internet service for business and residents throughout the area within a year. The company had tested wireless service in its building and reported employees were able to take laptops from room to room without losing Internet connections. LORAS COLLEGE and the DUBUQUE COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT were expected to have similar systems for use in the fall. Their networks would allow students and educators to use the Internet through laptops in classrooms and certain common areas. The educational network is only designed to work inside buildings and did not allow Internet connection other places. (2)

In 2001, You Squared, whose CEO was Wayne BRIGGS became the first local business to provide wireless Internet service reaching from Epworth to Maquoketa in Iowa, Cuba City to Kieler in Wisconsin and Eagle Ridge to East Dubuque in Illinois, began setting up a digital network. Prior to that, wireless Internet service was provided commercially only around Dyersville and in areas close to other local Internet providers. Company officials announced the company would be able to service 90% of the residences and businesses in the tri-state region.

This choice was not a substitute for fiber-optic networks which were much more expensive but offered top-of-the-line quality. Wireless could cost less because it did not depend on the use of copper wires or cables. Prices began at an estimated $40 per month but depended upon options including the speed of connections. Digital signals traveled by line of site requiring signals to be transmitted from multiple towers.

At the time of the announcement T-1 connection transmitted information at speeds of 250 kilobytes per second or more. Two other choices for high-speed Internet access included DSL which provided 200 kilobytes or more and ISDN that provided 128 kilobytes per second. Dial-up access transmitted information at speeds up to 56 kilobytes. The fastest connections, T-1 and wireless Internet, had the potential in 2001 of transmitting information at 1.5 megabytes per second. (3)

You Squared was met with competition immediately. In May the announcement was made that Midwest Wireless, a Mankato, Minnesota-based company, had signed a letter of agreement to purchase digital personal-communication services licenses from McLeodUSA Inc. With an estimated 216,000 customers in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, Midwest Wireless was one of the largest telecommunications providers in the area. Cities included in the PCS licenses were Dubuque, Fort Dodge, Marshalltown, Mason City, Sioux City, Waterloo and Cedar Falls. The purchase of McLeodUSA would add more than 1.2 million potential customers. Plans were announced for a retail office in Dubuque. Competitors of the five-year old company with revenues in 2000 of $100 million, included Verizon Communications and Sprint. (4)

The need to construct towers to facilitate wireless communication was an important consideration for all companies. In 2002 Iowa Wireless was charged with building a cellular-communication tower near Bellevue without consulting proper officials. The Iowa State Historic Preservation Office filed the complaint with the Federal Communications Commission after it was found that the tower, constructed in 1999, was infringing on burial mounds nearby. It was found that two other towers had been improperly constructed in Guttenberg and Clinton. In a similar case in 2001 another cellular company had to remove the tower and restore the disturbed area--work that cost about $1 million. In 2000, the FCC had ordered a company to cease operations on eight of its towers for one year while its siting procedures were investigated. (5)

Envision2010, a community-planning procedure and document, listed in 2006 as one of its "10 Great Ideas for a Greater Dubuque": (6)

                Community-wide Wireless
                Make Dubuque a "wireless city by creating community-wide wireless
                accessibility to the Internet, available to residents, businesses,
                law enforcement, governments and visitors.

Phase II Wireless Enhanced 911 was announced in September, 2006. The system was available in Jo Daviess County, Illinois; Grant and Crawford counties, Wisconsin; and Dubuque County. The system allowed emergency call centers to automatically determine the exact location of a wireless caller. Prior to the new technology, the dispatcher had to obtain the location of a wireless caller verbally. Phase I of Enhanced 92 gave responders the cell phone user's call-back number and the cell tower transmitting the 911 call. (7)

FINLEY HOSPITAL (THE) announced in September, 2006 that patients and visitors with laptop computers with wireless interfaces could access the Internet for free. The first hospital in the city offering the option, Finley and other Iowa Health System affiliates were named the nation's "most wired" and "most wireless" health system in the July issue of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. (8)

In January, 2019 the City of Dubuque made an official publication of Ordinance No. 3-19. (9)

                 Requiring the City Manager to develop, with the approval of the
                 city council written guidelines to establish general procedures
                 and standards, consistent with all applicable federal and state
                 laws, for the siting, construction, installation, collocation,
                 modification, relocation, operation and removal of small cell
                 wireless technology with the city's right-of-way and on city
                 property.

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Source:

1. "What is Wireless Technology? Definition and Examples," Market Business News. Online: https://marketbusinessnews.com/financial-glossary/wireless-technology/

2. Coyle Erin, "Out of Line," Telegraph Herald, June 17 2001, p. 45

3. Coyle, Erin, "The 'Surf' Soon Will Be Up in Tri-State Area, Telegraph Herald, October 15, 2001, p. 3

4. Kittle, M. D., "New Player Entering Local Wireless Market," Telegraph Herald, May 2, 2001, p. 3

5. Nevans-Pederson, Mary, "Officials File Complaint Over Iowa Wireless Towers," Telegraph Herald, June 10, 2002, p. 34

5. "10 Great Ideas for Greater Dubuque," Envision: The Community Projects by 2010, Online: http://p8080-10.30.40.140.ezproxy.dubuque.lib.ia.us/ResCarta-Web/jsp/RcWebImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=76d75574-3467-4ecf-9df4-c2b7da149f1e/ResCarta/00000050/00005040

6. Hogstrom, Erik, "Phase II Adds a Level in Finding Source of 911 Call," Telegraph Herald, September 3, 2006, p. 1A

7. Hogstrom, Erik, "Finley Offers Wireless Web," Telegraph Herald, September 30, 2006, p. 5

8. Official Publication, Telegraph Herald, January 11, 2019, p. 25