Welcome to the story of Wi-Fi. It’s a technology most of us use every day without a second thought, but its journey from a slow, niche concept to the backbone of our digital lives is a fascinating one. This overview will trace the early evolution of Wi-Fi by exploring the foundational standards that made it all possible.

The term Wi-Fi stands for “Wireless Fidelity” and is the common name for a technology based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards. At its core, Wi-Fi is a local area networking (LAN) technology created to provide broadband coverage inside buildings, freeing us from the constraints of physical cables.

To understand how we got to the fast, reliable connections of today, we must first travel back to where it all began: the original 802.11 standard.