The Evolution of Networking: From LAN to 5G and Beyond
I still remember the first time I connected to the internet. That familiar screech of the dial-up modem, the anxious wait to see if the connection would hold, and that magical moment when the world suddenly opened up on my computer screen. It's almost hard to believe that was how we used to get online, especially now as I sit here writing this article on my phone while streaming music over 5G. The Early Days: When Networks Were Actually Physical Back in college, I worked at a small IT company that still had some of their original network equipment from the 1980s tucked away in a dusty storage room. The massive coaxial cables and clunky network cards serve as physical reminders of how far we've come. Those early Local Area Networks (LANs) were revolutionary for their time, but they were also incredibly finicky. I remember one of the old-timers telling me how a single loose connection could bring down an entire office network, leading to hours of crawling under desks and checki...