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Norman Abramson Builds ALOHA.net, the First Packet-Switched Wireless Data Network

1970
photo of Norman Abramson in 2007
Norman Abramson in 2007

In 1970 American engineer and computer scientist Norman Abramson at the University of Hawaii built ALOHAnet, the first wireless packet-switched data network, using packet radio.

Unlike the ARPANET where each node could talk to a node on the other end, ALOHA used a shared medium for transmission and revealed the need for contention management schemes. ALOHA’s situation was similar to issues that were later faced by Ethernet (non-switched) and Wi-Fi networks.

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