The genesis of my knowledge of Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) began in the late 1980s as I became an Amateur Radio Operator (N8GNJ) concurrent with the emergence of Packet Radio in Amateur Radio. In time I began using TCP/IP over Amateur Packet Radio, and came to understand the concepts of TCP/IP (Internet) over wireless technology (radio). The hands-on experience I got from that experimentation of TCP/IP over radio proved invaluable as a "mental model" in trying to understand the many technologies I encountered and wrote about.
One example I'm really fond of was interviewing Marty Cooper (blog post yet to be written).
In 1996, I was fascinated to discover that providing Internet Access via wireless technologies was not only possible, but being done routinely by a small band of pioneering Internet Service Providers. At the time I was also an avid reader of Boardwatch Magazine which was chronicling the emergence of the commercial Internet, and especially the new concept of providing Internet access to the public. I dropped a note to Boardwatch Magazine that they should be covering this "Internet access via Wireless" trend, and if they couldn't find someone to write about it, I'd be willing to try. A few weeks after that letter, I came home to an excited wife who waved a phone number for me to call a Boardwatch editor to discuss how fast I could get my first column to them.
By mid-1997, I was writing professionally about Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA), first as a monthly columnist in Boardwatch Magazine.
In 2000, I began writing about BWIA full time in Boardwatch, numerous other publications, and eventually my own blogs and FOCUS On Broadband Wireless Internet Access, my subscription newsletter.
From 2008 - 2015, I took a hiatus from writing about BWIA, but my interest in BWIA did not wane. In 2016, I was able to consider resuming writing full time, and I formed Zero Retries to publish a family of subscription newsletters about Broadband Internet Access using various wireless technologies. In 2021 I was able to resume writing.
A more extensive bio is available at https://www.stevestroh.com.
My public email address is first name dot last name at the Google email service.
Thanks for reading!
Steve Stroh
Bellingham, Washington, USA
This page last updated 2020-03-16