The term “wireless” came into public use to refer to a radio receiver or transceiver, establishing its usage in the field of wireless telegraphy early on; now the term is used to describe modern wireless connections such as in cellular networks and wireless broadband Internet. It is also used in a general sense to refer to any type of operation that is implemented without the use of wires, such as “wireless remote control”, “wireless energy transfer”, etc. regardless of the specific technology that is used to accomplish the operation.

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

Possibly the most important discovery in the history of wireless technology was the demonstration by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in 1888 that electromagnetic waves exist as predicted by James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday. He also proved that these waves could be transmitted and caused to travel through space and that they were able to be received by an experimental apparatus. The experiments of Hertz proved to be very important to the fields of wireless communication and remote control, though practical applications of the technology would be implemented by others.

Nikola Tesla

Some principles and inventions of wireless technology can be found in the lectures, patent record, and other accounts of the electrical engineer Nikola Tesla (such as his 1916 deposition on the history of wireless and radio technology: ‘Nikola Telsa On His Work With Alternating Currents And Their Application to Wireless Telegraphy, Telephony, and Transmission of Energy, Anderson, Leland, ed., Published 1992).

Wireless communication is the transfer of information over a distance without the use of electrical conductors or wires. The distances involved may be short or very long. When the context is clear the term is often simply shortened to “wireless”. Wireless communications is generally considered to be a branch of telecommunications.

Wireless communication involves

• Radio frequency communication

• Microwave communication

• Infrared short-range communication