Apple’s done a sterling job popularising and now extending wireless use among computer users recently. But they’ve had a long history of doing the same thing. Back in 1995, when precious few people were considering the topic, they were lobbying the FCC to set aside some unlicensed space for data comms. Here’s a report from the EFF newsletter of the time:
Apple’s petition states:
“The NII Band would promote the full deployment of a National Information Infrastructure (“NII“), extending the effective reach of the NII by making possible high-bandwidth access and interaction throughout a limited geographic area — where mobility is key — both on a peer-to-peer, ad hoc basis and through wireless local area networks. Moreover, it would provide for unlicensed, wireless, wide area “community networks” connecting communities, schools, and other groups underserved by existing and proposed telecommunications offerings.
(The irony is that the frequency that Apple successfully lobbied for is, I believe, the same frequency that 802.11a now lives within. And 802.11a is the standard that Apple has pretty much killed by supporting the speed-bumped 802.11g in its Airport Extreme. Turned out that 2.4Ghz was good enough.)