Wireless and Bluetooth technology was not widespread 20 years ago because the technology was not available or developed yet. It was only in the 1990s that the first Bluetooth products began to appear on the market. Before that, most communication between devices was done using cables or infrared waves. Additionally, the cost of the technology was prohibitive for many consumers and businesses.

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Internet service speeds in 2002 were also pitiful by modern standards. You weren’t walking around the house streaming video on a 56k modem.

Homes had one computer and it was hard wired to a phone jack. There was no use case for a wireless router.

Both. New tech leads to new tech breakthroughs. New tech is expensive and it takes time to find ways to mass produce them to make them affordable.

Additionally the demand was lower. Laptops were just starting to become common for consumers. In the mid-2000s advances in manufacturing of semiconductors to reduce the size of components allowed laptops to become powerful enough to compete with desktop units, and gave rise to smart phones. I started college around this time. In my first year I saw maybe 10 Laptops total on campus and limited WiFi. By the time I graduated almost everyone had a laptop and a smart phone, and the campus had deployed WiFi to cover all occupied areas, plus some outdoors.

Honestly, the connection quality on BT devices is garbage now vs in 2005. The tech evolved, but not necessarily in a great way.

It wasn't common because interfaces people used every day were established and analog. Cars had tape players and a BT stereo was a wild.

> There was no use case for a wireless router.

Well home wi-fi did exist. In 2002-ish my friend got an "antenna" that he attached to his laptop and we'd drive around the more affluent neighborhoods looking for wireless networks. No one who had wireless bothered to secure the network back then, and when we'd find one we'd go into the printer and make it print out various things ("help I'm stuck in the printer" or "YOU'RE FIRED"). Ah, youth.

Fancy pants richers with their DSL modems.

My friend had an interesting job then at a major financial industry company. Lots of rollerblading through the offices with a radio receiver and a pair of scissors.

Around then wifi security was bad even if you did set a password (because it was probably still WEP*). Yet the convenience was too tempting for some employees. They’d bring in a router and plug it into their ethernet cable so they could have their own little rogue network in their cubicle.

So my friend would home in on these spots, cut the ethernet cable, and leave a note that they’ll be fired if caught doing this again

* Shoutout to my neighbors at the place I moved to in 2011 for still using WEP security. Our cable didn’t get set up for a week or two. Lifesaver

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My laptop about 18 years ago had both.

15 years ago I was sharing my dial up connection at home with wifi.

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