A Brief History of Hotspots

I do a lot of computing on the go. Be it trains, hackathons, hotels, or being stuck on the runway, internet connectivity is a requirement. I’ve tried a number of solutions throughout the years to stay connected. Long before the days of a “data plan” I was tethering my Dell Inspiron through a hacked Verizon KRZR K1M with a standalone GPS. It was a clunky simulacrum of the iPhone, but it worked (unfortunately, it would take another decade for that sort of technical prowess to be cool).