Wireless was the next significant step in telecommunication after the telephone.
Scientists and engineers began to fathom electromagnetic waves, they also discovered how to manipulate and exploit them.
This success meant that you didn't need to have a physical connection between the sender and the receiver, enabling you to send information across huge distances - around the world, or even across space.
Wireless works because an electromagnetic wave, passing through the air at the speed of light, can create - or 'induce' - an electrical signal in an aerial.
If you can control this electromagnetic wave, then you can use it to communicate or to broadcast information....
When scientists first realised that electromagnetic waves could be transmitted through the air, they didn't understand the full extent or impact of what they'd discovered.
As our knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum and the properties of electromagnetic waves has...
Although you can communicate over long distances with wireless, there are limits because the Earth's surface is curved and electromagnetic waves may be lost before reaching their intended destination.
The solution to these limitations is to use communication satellites...
Mobiles phones have changed our lives since the first ones appeared in 1985. Today's mobile phones are triumphs of miniaturisation - there's nothing else you own that's likely to fit so much technology into such a small package.
It's a great combination of electronics...