Skip to Main Content
College Home Page
E C E Home Page

Frank Kuo is a pioneer in wireless networking. In the early 1960's, he did research in computer communications at Bell Laboratories, in Murray Hill, NJ. At that time he published his first book - Network Analysis and Synthesis (John Wiley). He left in 1966 to join the UH Electrical Engineering Department as a full professor.  During the years 1968 to 1972, he and Norman Abramson developed the ALOHAnet, the world’s first wireless packet network. It formed the basis of Ethernet and Wifi systems. In 1972, he and Norm published the first book on computer networking - Computer Communication Networks (Prentice Hall).

During two years on leave from Hawaii, in 1976-77, he was the Director of Information Systems, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the Pentagon.

In the 1980s, at SRI International he led many projects in networking and information systems applications. One of them was the first NSF project on the architecture of the NSF network for science and education. The project served as the baseline for the architectural definition of NSFNET.  He also worked part-time at Stanford University, as a Consulting Professor in Electrical Engineering, and as a Mentor in the Stanford Business School.

During that period he was a member of the NSF advisory committee on supercomputer networks. For two years he served as a special consultant to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) initiative.

In 1994, Frank was a co-founder of General Wireless Communications, Inc., which has been renamed as Mtone Wireless Corporation. It is a major supplier for short messaging and cellphone games in China.

Dr. Kuo received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign. He is an IEEE Fellow and a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award.