April 2007 marks a full decade that I've been writing professionally about what I now call Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA).
My debut was a column called Wireless Data Development in Boardwatch Magazine's April 1997 issue shown at right. My column topic made the cover - AT&T Introduces A Wireless Local Loop. (Unfortunately, only a few remnants have survived online from Boardwatch's once-considerable online presence, and the April, 1997 issue isn't among them.)
Although I cannot find where and when he said it, some time prior to the April, 1997 issue, Boardwatch Editor Rotundus (his self-conferred title) Jack Rickard abruptly transitioned the magazine from covering both the Bulletin Board Service (BBS) industry and the fledgling Internet Service Provider industry, to just the latter. He also invited those who had ideas for new columns to submit their ideas. I submitted a writing sample and a proposal, and heard from a Boardwatch editor in approximately January-February 1997 to "start writing".
In those first few years of Wireless Data Developments, I struggled to explain to the new Internet Service Provider industry about the benefits of using wireless technology to provide the last mile between the ISP and the user.
The topic of the column and I were met with a lot of outright skepticism, not the least of which was from Editor Rickard who I never met or talked to the entire time I wrote the column, and later feature articles. Rickard only told me years later that his opinion then was "This guy [me] can't write worth crap... but let him keep trying". I don't think Rickard ever really got wireless, even though he did finally get to see the realization of what I had been talking about for all those years by attending a WISPCON - Wireless Internet Service Provider Conference where Rickard saw for himself that the small entrepreneurial ISP that was so beloved to him and Boardwatch was alive and well... just now using wireless.
Wireless Data Developments opened the door to other writing opportunities about the subject of Broadband Wireless Internet Access. I particularly enjoyed writing for Broadband Wireless Business (now also apparently defunct) in its early years.
Wireless Data Developments lasted about five years, and Boardwatch didn't survive for too much longer, a victim of two ownership turnovers, loss of passion (and Rickard), the devastating downturn in the tech industry, the movement of advertising and readership to online, and trying to cater the content to what the big advertisers wanted rather than keeping the content relevant to the core audience of smaller, entrepreneurial ISPs.
One proud moment with Boardwatch came in January, 2002 with the publication of what I submitted as my last column, but ended up being barely sandwiched into the magazine as an article called Wireless Smart Radio, Heavy Lobbying Would Bring Wireless ISP Band. I've told that story previously on this blog. As far as I'm aware, this was the first article in print that proposed what are now called Cognitive Radio Techniques that would allow Broadband Wireless Internet Access to effectively share unused television broadcast channels (now called "TV Whitespace") while protecting legacy television broadcasting. Such a proposal is now under active consideration at the FCC, backed by companies such as Microsoft and Cisco.
But my proudest achievement in ten years of writing about Broadband Wireless Internet Access was that I conveyed information of worth to readers. I taught them things, and about things, that they otherwise wouldn't have known about or understood as well. Over the years, many have told me that they've appreciated my writing, and being told that is very gratifying.
During these last ten years, especially the past seven writing full time, my wonderful wife Tina has supported me in every conceivable way. I couldn't have written at all, but especially couldn't have written as much or as well, without Tina's unflagging support. Thank You Honey!
(Within the last few days, DailyWireless.org and Wi-Fi Networking News have announced milestones of their own.)
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh
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