Why is your chosen notable 'Notable'? In other words, what did John O'Sullivan do to change the world, what did he do to influence the growing generation? Well, John O'Sullivan created arguably, society's greatest need. WLAN, wireless connectivity, wireless network or more commonly known as WIFI. Because of WIFI, you can share data in a multi-user environment without any overhead cost. Most companies equip their desktops with these WLAN because of their convenience and ease of access. WIFI is, no doubt, easy to use as well as cost efficient, and faster than its cousin, the cables and this was all done by none other than John O'Sullivan.
John O’Sullivan was born in 1947, Sydney. After graduating from Sydney University of Electrical engineering he moved to the Netherlands. He took a PHD under Chris Christiansen and worked closely with Dr Robert, engineering the Fleurs Synthesis Radio telescope. This telescope has been the basis of PHD engineering for the past twenty years. He finished his PHD in 1974 and took an appointment at the Foundation of Radio Astronomy now ASTRON. He went on to become the head of engineering, making major improvements to the engineering, signal processing and image processing area.
Dr O’Sullivan returned to Australia in 1983, playing a crucial role in the early role of Australian telescope receiving systems. When he joined CSIRO, he was primarily charged with setting up a new signal processing team at the Division of Radio physics. This led to many contributions to the company, making image processing for medical and geological applications, as well as underground mining safety and communication and radar processing. After his demonstration on WLAN, he left CSIRO in 1995, moving to the News LTD as their Australian Technology director. Following the formation of Radiata in 1997, he returned to Australia to join them as Vice President of Systems Engineering. He continued this role for some time after the acquisition of Radiata by Cisco in 2001.More recently, Dr O’Sullivan returned to CSIRO to work on the system design for the Square Kilometer Array.
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On two thousand and two the first unlicensed WLAN was released making twenty three companies follow the lead. This went on unoticed for over three years until CSIRO had had enough. They stood for litigation. The court case was a underdog battle, CSIRO going up against Apple, Microsoft, Dell and many others
“It’s like radio reverberation. If you are trying to send bits, one after another, at 100 megabits per second, those bits are only about three meters apart. So, the reverberation would do a pretty good job of scrambling everything.”
First and foremost, John O’Sullivan was crucial to the modern age as his invention is the basis of the high-speed network and used in hundreds of billions of devices. Think about your sleek iPhone, laptop, and television. Then imagine them gone. Poof. Just gone and replace them with a bulkier, slower version. Because of him, he compacted these devices in to the ones we love and know today. O'Sullivan and his team ushered in the age of high-speed, always-on wireless connectivity that we enjoy today.
Secondly, WIFI can link people with anyone and with any information they want. This can be through Zoom, messages or even OneNote, the platform I am using right now to write this. All of this, this online teaching, the zooms with friends, they would be impossible if it were not for the work of CSIRO, if it were not for the work of John O'Sullivan. It might be hard to believe but technology of this kind was not around a few decades ago. It might be hard to believe that you could not search up the latest news or look at the newest feed in your YouTube but it is true.
Furthermore, WIFI has improved most of the digital devices and introduced a new age, the digital era. O'Sullivan did this by compacting them, making them faster and more reliable. By introducing this innovative technology, he released a breaking point which 23 big tech companies stole and made over with 5 billion devices holding the stolen tech. There was legal wrangling and in the end the lawsuit went in CSIROs favor with a revenue of $405 million. These companies included, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Microsoft, Nintendo, D-Link, Belkin, AT&T, Verizon, Toshiba, and T-Mobile. This groundbreaking development is the basis of all devices.
“Wireless networks existed, but we thought we could create an indoor wireless network that was as fast as the best wired network at the time, which was a fibre optic network. That ran at 100 megabits per second,”
So why did I choose him as my notable. Why did he grab my attention so much that I decided to research him? Well, it all started because of his invention, one I use day to day, the WIFI. I had no prior knowledge of him and I wanted to know more of this amazing man. After research for a couple of days I realised how influential he was to the world and more specifically, Australia. He made me realise that the same old phrase I hear from all the adults in my life is true. "Through hard work and dedication, you will succeed" or "I only want to see you trying your best." My interest, ever since I could think, was that I wished I could invent something. Something that changed the world, a cure to cancer, a hologram, anything. Now that I researched someone that did something I wanted to do I can follow his lead and turn my attention to helping the world, being notable.
In conclusion, John O'Sullivan is a man who, to put it simply, changed the world. Without him and his team at CSIRO our world as we know it would be totally different. For one, we know that we would not be as advanced in the technology age if it were not for the work of him. Because of WLAN, developing countries have the chance to evolve as WLAN is cost effective as well as it is easy to maintain and relocate. John O'Sullivan saved lives. If that is not notable, I do not know what is