Release Date: December 22,2025
Akron History Center’s New Exhibit Recalls That Modern Wi-Fi Has Its Roots in Akron
Akron, Ohio. December 19, 2025 — A new exhibit that opened December 17 at the Akron History Center recalls the inventions that helped lead the world to wireless communication for computers.
One thing that most of us take for granted is connecting our smart phones, laptops and tablets to the internet through Wi Fi. The development of “wireless high fidelity” owes a large part of its history to engineers at the Telxon Company in the 1980’s.
The story begins in 1978 when Bath Township residents Robert Meyerson and Ray Meyo took over Telxon, the Texas firm that was founded in 1969 by NASA scientists. The Universal Product Code had come into widespread use by national retailers. Telxon built hand-held computers to track inventories and transmit data to mainframe computers using the UPC.
In the 1980’s, wireless communication emerged as a fast-growing segment of the microcomputer industry, and Telxon was a leading manufacturer of wireless “tele-transaction” computers. By 1991, Telxon devices were in 1,800 Wal-Mart stores nationwide.
The Akron subsidiary of Telxon, Aironet Wireless Communications Inc., was among the first companies in the world to develop radios with the emerging “Wi-Fi” standard for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) radio equipment. Engineers at the Fairlawn-based company were key contributors to the new standard: Wi-Fi 802.11, and as part of the international Wi-Fi Alliance even helped coin the term “Wi-Fi”.
When Apple entered the Wi-Fi market in 1999, Aironet had already sold millions of dollars-worth of Wi-Fi radios to some of the largest companies in the US.
Don Sloan, an engineer with Akron tech startup Signal7, joined Telxon in 1988. In 2000, when Silicon Valley’s Cisco Systems acquired Aironet for $800 million and turned it into a billion-dollar business, Sloan became Director of Cisco’s Aironet Group until he retired in 2008. Cisco moved the Aironet team In 2003 to Richfield, where its team was responsible for over 300 patents in wireless communication, exemplifying the innovative spirit of Akron.
ON EXHIBIT
The History Center displays what may be the world’s first 11Mbps WI-FI RADIO CARD designed by Aironet, the 1999, winner of PC Magazine’s Best Products of the Year award.
Also shown is Aironet’s PC AT BUS PLUG IN BOARD that enabled users to have Internet access anywhere within a building and connect desktop and mobile computing devices wirelessly to network resources.
The TELXON PTC-860 Handheld Scanner was built to handle barcode scanning needs with precision and accuracy to enhance inventory management, with WIFI connections common today in desktop PCs.
The Akron History Center is operated by the Akron-Summit County Public Library with assistance from the Summit County Historical Society. The museum opened in April 2025 for the city’s Bicentennial year and has hosted more than 5,600 guests. The Center is open to the public and admission is always free.
HOURS OF OPERATION:
December 20- January 10, Wednesdays Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10:30am – 1:30pm. Open New Years Eve, closed New Years Day.
The Akron History Center will be closed January 11 – January 31, and will re-open Wednesday, February 4th.