The cable & wireless series

Historical evidence reveals that wireless communication is not a new fad, but a centuries-old practice.

News has it that a high profile project is currently on to develop a wireless communication system that can transmit data at 100 Gbps, across an incredible distance of up to 120 miles. To put that in perspective, a new film carefully locked up in the hard disk of a high-end computer in a studio in Chennai can be 

transmitted in roughly a hundredth of a second to Venkatagirikota - all two hours and twenty three minutes of it - and burnt onto a million DVDs before the first reel gets to the second frame. But since this column adopts a strong anti-piracy stance, we'll overlook such disturbing uses for new technology and focus on the more productive ones. (Yes, that means you will have to catch that flick in the theatres.)

The first ever wireless communication system was developed by the Persians, and later adopted by the Greeks and the Romans. It was far more advanced that the present one - they could transmit messages beyond the 120 mile barrier and could send several Terabytes of data, as long as it could fit into a little scroll which was rolled into a tiny packet and sent through a pigeon network.

However, most people began forwarding useless jokes and small messages in less than 140 characters which gave rise to the now-popular small packet problem and caused a congestion collapse. Besides, mischief mongers would catch pigeons and interchange the messages they were carrying - this led to packet switching issues as well. Special packet protocols were created to ensure that such glitches could be controlled in future. Well, the future is here - and so are the problems. Obviously things have not worked out as planned.

But the concept of wireless technology has been gainfully exploited by mobiles, with most leading mobile manufacturers offering wireless charging. Nokia, for instance has introduced the Lumia series of mobiles with a charging plate called the Fatboy Pillow on which they can be rested, to be completely charged.

Unhappy with this development, mobile users have launched a series of complaints citing that mobiles now have an unfair advantage over man. Apparently, a couple of them were fired from their jobs when they were caught resting on comfortable, fluffy pillows at work. They tried to reason that they were simply getting charged up for the job on hand, but the management wouldn't listen. Life was unfair – why was it that when they rested on pillows, they were derogatively referred to as couch potatoes, but the mobiles resting on their Fatboy Pillows were called ‘smart’ phones?

This complaint didn’t go down well with the potatoes – the tuber population had enough reason to be annoyed with this insulting reference, for they were playing a key role in wireless research. Around 20,000 pounds of potatoes were used for testing wireless signals inside an aircraft. After careful observation, the scientists had decided that sacks of potatoes best replicated human behaviour – the converse was also found to be true, especially when a TV was switched on.

The experiment has not only resulted in a major breakthrough in Wi-Fi in the sky, but has also given the food industry the secret of making light original potato chips - sending the potatoes 40,000 feet in the air made them lose excess starch. However, the wireless charging technology for mobiles – not involving potatoes - can be traced back to the Chinese theory of energy flow, known as Qi.

So, even as technology is freeing itself from the maze of wires, we are being strung along like puppets on a string. But there’s nothing new about that – which is why every new invention is merely history repeating itself.