History of wi-fi (Wireless network)

Wi-Fi hotspots were first proposed by Brett Stewart at the NetWorld+Interop conference in The Moscone Center in San

Francisco in August 1993. Stewart did not use the term 'hotspot' but referred to public accessible wireless LANs.

Stewart went on to found the companies PLANCOM in 1994 (for Public LAN Communications, which became MobileStar and

then the hotspot arm of T-Mobile) and subsequently Wayport in 1996.

The term 'HotSpot' may have first been advanced by Nokia about five years after Stewart first proposed the concept.
During the dot-com boom and subsequent bust in 2000, dozens of companies like WPMedia of the Rural Agriculture town

of Kingstree SC had the notion that Wi-Fi could become the payphone for broadband.

Although WPMedia Inc. invented, developed and patented United States Patent 7,035,281,