Where Did the Wi-Fi Symbol Come From?

Do you want to know a true factoid? Wi-Fi wasn’t initially called Wi-Fi. It was first termed “Flankspeed” and then “Dragonfly.” Both are acceptable upstanding words that were apparently stolen away from the wireless internet by George R. R. Martin.

Regardless, we now call it Wi-Fi and will get more into that in a bit. While you might not care one whit about what we call Wi-Fi or the “secret” symbology behind the Wi-Fi symbol, we’re going to tell it to you anyway.

Unless you’ve been living deep in the catacombs for the past few decades, you likely understand that Wi-Fi is a pretty big deal. Keep in mind that the internet as we know it today wouldn’t be nearly as flexible and connected without it.

The History of Wi-Fi

Okay, strap in because we’re going to go through this fast. We think it’s pretty interesting, and if you give it a chance, you might too.

In case you aren’t up to date on what Wi-Fi is, it is what we call being able to connect to the internet wirelessly either on your home network, at work, or even a hotspot down at the local Starbucks.

The signal arrives from your Internet Service Provider. It is plugged into a modem that translates the digital signal into data that your internet-enabled devices can understand, then sends it to the router, where the Wi-Fi magic happens.

A router broadcasts the internet signal essentially like a radio station. Any devices within range can ask to access the signal. The router assigns an IP address, makes the device login, and voila! You’re online using Wi-Fi technology.

Origins of Wi-Fi Technology

Let’s take a big step back into the mists of wireless communication history. It didn’t start with Wi-Fi, of course. That didn’t come along until the early 1970s. But it was back in 1873 when Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell proposed the then-radical idea of using electromagnetic waves to transmit data.

His scientist buddies thought about it for a while. They agreed it was a good idea, but that’s where the idea stayed until a gent by the name of Marconi invented something he called the telegraph in 1896, which sent the first wireless message of “Are you ready?” over a distance of six kilometers.

Marconi was also granted a radio patent the same year.

Over the following decades, various technologies developed, culminating in the first FM radio station going live in 1933. Fast forward to 1946, and we witnessed the development of commercial telephone service headquartered in St. Louis by fledgling companies AT&T and Southern Bell.

A year later, in 1947, a powerful invention called the transistor arrived, thereby spelling the beginning of the end for the vacuum tube, which had hitherto been the “power plant” inside various wireless communication devices. Transistors were smaller and tougher and got scientists and engineers thinking about how they could blend computers and communications.

By 1954, transistor radios were on the market that could easily fit in a pocket. From there, it was a quick slide to the early 1970s and Vic Hayes's work as the “Father of Wi-Fi.” More on that in a moment. 

Early Wi-Fi Development

In 1971, a plan was launched to connect the US mainland to the Hawaiian Islands. ALOHAnet was the protocol to set up communication via a UHF wireless network. This was the forerunner to ethernet and later the IEEE 802.11 protocol, which is where Wi-Fi came from and still rests comfortably atop.

That last bit of gobbledygook might have little meaning to you, and you don’t need to know a whole lot about it other than it would eventually become foundational to our modern Wi-Fi.

Vic Hayes joined the NCR Corp. in 1974, and things really started to happen in the Wi-Fi arena. However, nothing was exciting enough for the general public to pay attention to until 1985 when the FCC licensed certain broadcast bands for unlicensed use.

This opened the floodgates for wireless technology based on these wireless frequencies. At this point, Hayes was still working with NCR and partnering with AT&T to develop a project called WaveLAN that was used with wireless cashier systems.

WaveLAN was the final step before we would venture entirely into the 802.11 protocol and an almost fully modernized Wi-Fi technology. 

Wi-Fi devices were achingly slow in the early part of the 1990s. Thankfully, that changed, and by the end of the decade, it was able to move data at around 11 Mbps, a speed fast enough to start to draw the attention of the internet using public. 

The official invention of Wi-Fi occurred in the mid-90s when an Australian radio-astronomer, Dr. John O’Sullivan, was investigating black holes and ended up being granted a patent for some of the essential bits of Wi-Fi function.

O’Sullivan’s research focused on clearing up the interference that degraded Wi-Fi quality. This increased speed, leading to widespread adoption by the early 2000s.  

Early Wi-Fi Applications

Before we move into Wi-Fi applications, let’s lay down some basics about how the whole process benefits internet users. Wi-Fi, as currently constructed, uses several parts of the protocol family IEEE 802, which works well with the wired portion of the process known as ethernet.

Initial devices that used Wi-Fi included:

• Desktop computers
• TVs
• Printers 
• Gaming consoles
• Mobile phones
• Tablets

More recent devices are:

• Smart televisions
• Digital cameras
• Drones
• Self-driving cars
• The Internet of Things (IoT)

Wi-Fi has flexed its muscles significantly with the rise of home networking. In the early days of the internet, users were generally chained to a single device by an ethernet cable with a length of six feet. Wi-Fi technology reinvented the internet by allowing many household devices to access the same signal wirelessly. 

Even better, they didn’t have to stay in one spot but could pick their favorite work location in the house or even migrate at will throughout the day. Users could work or play from anywhere as long as their device could latch onto the Wi-Fi signal.

Impact of Wi-Fi on Society

It would be difficult to overestimate how Wi-Fi technology has affected society. In addition to the exponential increase in the number of devices the average household has connected to Wi-Fi, the overall percentage of wireless internet traffic is up to 52%.

• The average US home has 15 Wi-Fi connected devices
• 90% of households use Wi-Fi to connect

Thanks to its status as an unlicensed technology that anyone can use or profit from, Wi-Fi’s contribution to the US economy is more than $500 billion annually. 

And it appears that we might be addicted to the stuff. Consider the following:

• 91% of people choose a hotel based on Wi-Fi availability/quality
• 75% would rather go a week without coffee than lose their Wi-Fi 

The bottom line is that most of us rely on a strong Wi-Fi signal for business, entertainment, and personal needs. We want it at home, on the road, and at work. There are few areas of our lives that don’t involve the internet, at least to some extent, and when you talk about the internet in today’s world, you’re talking about Wi-Fi.

We’ll leave this section with a final point. When you want to talk to someone, do you actually make a phone call, text, email, or instant message? Our primary methods of communication now rely on Wi-Fi.

We live in a brave, new world thanks to Wi-Fi.

The Wi-Fi Symbol

Despite all the words we’ve just thrown at you, nothing says Wi-Fi like that little icon with a dot on the bottom and three increasingly longer arcs above it. You see it on your tablet, laptop, and smartphone every day.

It’s no accident the design resembles waves propagating through the air. It is wireless, after all.

So, exactly where did the idea for this symbol come from, and how does it relate to the various generations of wireless technology?

The Wi-Fi symbol in its current iteration first appeared on the scene around 2001 (an important date for classic sci-fi movie fans). This was shortly after the public release of the first fully functional Wi-Fi protocols and was incorporated into Windows and Mac operating systems.

The idea of an icon featuring signal bars could trace its roots all the back to radio receivers from the 1930s, but it was the first time the exact configuration of stacked signal bars in an arc had been used to signify signal strength.

Significance of the Wi-Fi Symbol

The Wi-Fi symbol, as currently configured, allows any user of an internet-enabled device to tell at a glance if there is a wireless signal available and how strong it is. Having just gone through the many reasons Wi-Fi has become one of the most powerful technological forces on the planet, it’s pretty important to recognize it.

If you can’t find the Wi-Fi, you can’t use the Wi-Fi. If you can’t use the Wi-Fi, you might as well go back to etching simple pictures onto cave walls.

On a more esoteric level, the expanding arcs of a broadcast signal incorporated into the Wi-Fi symbol represent the connectivity and accessibility that Wi-Fi provides to anyone with the right device. 

And most of us have at least one of the right devices. The market penetration of smartphones in the US is at about 81%. Every one of those smartphones needs a wireless signal, or they aren’t much good for anything other than a drink coaster.

Branding and Marketing

The Wi-Fi symbol has become so ubiquitous as a representation of wireless communication that it’s not surprising when an opportuning product or service in the industry decides to deploy it in their branding and marketing efforts.

You can find dozens of examples of the symbol incorporated into various company logos for use on business cards, websites, etc. The exciting thing that doctoral candidate Erik Born discussed is that the Wi-Fi symbol’s effect on consumers might be more complex than it appears at first glance.

Born says that, upon viewing the wireless icon, our thoughts might go well beyond the simple idea of broadcasting. Maybe our subconscious attaches to it the idea of new possibilities for influence and audience-building. 

Maybe instead of only thinking of vast distances, we ponder closeness. 

Whether Born is onto something or full of bat guano remains to be seen. Regardless, we like the way he thinks.

Future of Connectivity

At its base, a wave represents a transfer of energy through oscillation through a medium - either space or mass. It’s eternal. This idea is why the Wi-Fi symbol works so well in occupying its current place in technology.

The internet is the most explosive technology of our time and maybe any other time. From where we stand, Wi-Fi-related advancements will continue with no end in sight. This makes the Wi-Fi symbol in its current iteration a perfect representation of the future of internet connectivity.

Final Thoughts

A lot of history goes into something so simple as a logo. We’ve tried to give you a sense of wireless connectivity’s past in this article. The Wi-Fi symbol is a simple logo on the one hand but serves as a deeper meaning when you consider the impact of Wi-Fi on global society.

Obviously, the protocol that drives Wi-Fi isn’t letting any grass grow under its feet. The latest in a long line of iterations is known as Wi-Fi 6 (IEEE 802.11ax), and there will surely be more to come after that. 

A lot of the talk about the future of wireless is tied up in the growing 5G network. 5G is a newfangled, superfast wireless technology that is starting to make inroads into the home internet market.