Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio: Dawn of a Wireless Technology

At 36,000 feet, Wi-Fi converts our airline seats to remote offices. It lets us read email in airports, watch video in coffee shops, and listen to music at home. Wi-Fi is everywhere. But where did it come from?

Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio takes us back to when the Internet was first gaining popularity, email took ten minutes to load up, and cell phones were big and unwieldy. But Alex Hills had a vision: people carrying small handheld devices that were always connected. His unwavering purpose was to change the way we use the Internet.

After being a teenage “ham operator” and bringing radio, TV and telephone service to the Eskimos of northern Alaska, Dr. Hills led a small band of innovators to overcome “the bad boys of radio” – the devilishly unpredictable behavior of radio waves – and build the network that would become the forerunner to today’s Wi-Fi.

“I know of no one so capable of telling the Wi-Fi story and explaining so clearly how the technology works. Alex Hills is certain to capture the public imagination with this new book.”
~ Jim Geier, Principal Consultant, Wireless-Nets, Ltd. and Wi-Fi author

“Alex Hills has contributed to the developing world and to developing advanced wireless technology at one of the world’s most tech-savvy universities. Working on both frontiers, Dr. Hills pioneered wireless Internet and launched a revolution in the way the world communicates. His story of how we “cut the cord” begins in a place where there were no cords to begin with — remote Alaska.”
~ Mead Treadwell, Lieutenant Governor of Alaska and former Chair, United States Arctic Research Commission

Alex Hills is Distinguished Service Professor of Engineering & Public Policy and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Hills is frequently invited to speak at conventions, conferences, university seminars, corporate training sessions, and community events. His talks, with their vivid stories and clear explanations of technology, have been well-received by audiences throughout the United States and in more than twenty foreign countries. An inventor with eleven patents, Dr. Hills can write and speak in technical jargon. But in his writing, as in his talks, he speaks to everyone — technical specialists and the public alike. People of all backgrounds have been fascinated by his contributions to Scientific American and IEEE Spectrum magazines — articles that explain technology in a style that is clear to any reader.