Do you remember when Wi-Fi had an entirely different vocabulary?
Wireless Ethernet. Ad-hoc mode. Wireless Zero Configuration. Wireless switches. Warchalking. Super G and Turbo Mode. Fat APs versus thin APs. Draft-N. If you have been around Wi-Fi long enough, you probably remember using at least a few of these terms without giving them a second thought.
At the time, they were simply part of the everyday language of wireless networking. Some described actual technologies, some were marketing terms, and others just faded away as Wi-Fi evolved. Warchalking was actually a thing, and I remember when we called WLAN controllers “wireless switches.” That term eventually faded away, but now we seem to be coming full circle, with “wireless gateway” becoming more common.
Wi-Fi has come a very long way, and so has the vocabulary around it. What once sounded perfectly normal now sounds almost prehistoric. These words used to be part of the job; now they’re mostly WiFi trivia.
How many of these do you remember, and what extinct Wi-Fi term did I miss?
Add yours in the comments—and repost this for the other Wi-Fi Old Guys.
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