Wireless network
any network at least partly not connected by physical cables of any kind
A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking allows homes, telecommunications networks, and business installations to avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment locations. Admin telecommunications networks are generally implemented and administered using radio communication. This implementation takes place at the physical level (layer) of the OSI model network structure.
Examples of wireless networks include cell phone networks, wireless local area networks (WLANs), wireless sensor networks, satellite communication networks, and terrestrial microwave networks.
History
Wireless networks
The first professional wireless network was developed under the brand ALOHAnet in 1969 at the University of Hawaii and became operational in June 1971. The first commercial wireless network was the WaveLAN product family, developed by NCR in 1986.
1973 – Ethernet 802.3
1991 – 2G cell phone network
June 1997 – 802.11 "Wi-Fi" protocol first release
1999 – 803.11 VoIP integration
Underlying technology
Advances in MOSFET (MOS transistor) wireless technology enabled the development of digital wireless networks. The wide adoption of RF CMOS (radio frequency CMOS), power MOSFET and LDMOS (lateral diffused MOS) devices led to the development and proliferation of digital wireless networks by the 1990s, with further advances in MOSFET technology leading to increasing bandwidth in the 2000s (Edholm's law). Most of the essential elements of wireless networks are built from MOSFETs, including the mobile transceivers, base station modules, routers, RF power amplifiers, telecommunication circuits, RF circuits, and radio transceivers, in networks such as 2G, 3G, and 4G.
Wireless links
Terrestrial microwave – Terrestrial microwave communication uses Earth-based transmitters and receivers resembling satellite dishes.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wireless network” is any network at least partly not connected by physical cables of any kind. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wireless, network and least, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11375. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1969, 1971, 1986 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wireless network” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.