Wireless computer network

Computer networks in the 1960s required cables—expensive to install, impossible across water or rugged terrain. The Hawaiian Islands presented a unique challenge: the University of Hawaii had campuses scattered across islands, each needing network access but separated by ocean channels where cables would be prohibitively expensive.

Norman Abramson and his team created ALOHAnet in 1971, the first wireless computer network. Using UHF radio to connect terminals on different islands to the central computer on Oahu, ALOHAnet solved a geographical problem that wired networks couldn't address. More importantly, the ALOHA protocol—which handled the chaos of multiple stations transmitting simultaneously—became foundational to all packet-based wireless communication.

The adjacent possible required several streams to converge. Radio technology was mature from decades of broadcast use. The ARPANET had demonstrated that packet switching could work for data. Computing had become distributed enough to need networks. The unique geography of Hawaii created both the problem and, through the university's location, the researchers positioned to solve it.

ALOHA's key innovation was its approach to channel sharing. When stations transmitted simultaneously, their signals collided and corrupted. The ALOHA protocol let stations transmit whenever they had data, detect collisions, and retransmit after random delays. This 'contention-based' approach seemed wasteful—pure ALOHA achieved only 18% channel efficiency—but it eliminated the complexity of coordinating transmission schedules. Robert Metcalfe studied ALOHA while designing Ethernet, adapting its collision-detection principles for wired networks.

Geographic factors shaped subsequent development. Hawaii's isolation created the original need. Stanford and Xerox PARC, receiving the ideas through academic networks, refined them for local area networks. The IEEE 802.11 working group, standardizing wireless LAN technology in the 1990s, built directly on ALOHA's foundation. The path from a Hawaiian radio network to global Wi-Fi ran through these institutions.

The cascade effects extended far beyond Hawaii. Cellular telephone networks used similar contention and access protocols. Satellite communication adopted ALOHA variants. Every Wi-Fi network—billions of devices worldwide—uses descendants of the techniques Abramson developed. The protocol designed for a few dozen terminals across Pacific islands now connects most of humanity's wireless devices.

By 2025, wireless networking had become so ubiquitous that its origins were largely forgotten. But every time a device negotiates channel access, detects interference, or backs off before retransmitting, it executes algorithms whose lineage traces back to a radio tower in Hawaii, solving the problem of connecting islands without cables.