When I was younger, I used to imagine being connected to the Internet without being tethered by the telephone cables. I was using my father’s old 386SX laptop back then. And the Internet was still unheard of from where I came from. In fact, the Internet as we know it was perhaps still a figment of someone’s imagination.

I spent a couple of years enjoying BBSing, and even setting up my own. But then Internet access became cheap, and I got hold of a pretty fast (for that time) Pentium-based desktop and a decent 28Kbps modem. Ah, that was the life—or so I thought. How would I have known access would be faster tenfold only a few years after.

So moving on, I spent a few years on dialup, now and then upgrading computers. When I started to work, I got to enjoy broadband Internet access through the office network. But my first foray into WiFi was when I started working at a small tech firm. We had WiFi at the office, and I was able to save up for a used laptop. So with a borrowed WiFi PC Card, I got to surf unwired for the first time.

Next: alternatives to WiFi