The Matrix (1999)

There's a site called Cyberpunk Review (click above image to enter) which has an interesting explanation of human batteries, Neo as the ultimate version and wireless communication which also opines that The Thirteenth Floor film version of virtual reality makes no sense. Here's that portion:

How is Neo Different From Other Battery People? Now lets get to Neo - in the Sci-fi interpretation, we find that Neo actually had a special package implanted in his head at birth that was different from the other battery people (re: the architect’s conversation). This package includes both a sentient program learns over time, and a method to communicate directly with the source. Neo the “person” is actually not just a person or even a normal “battery” person, but is a symbiotic combination of human and learning sentient program. The sentient program in a very real sense is “part” of Neo. It is not a virus living off a host – it is a fully integrated entity, which transforms Neo into a true man-machine organism just as Motoko was at the end of Ghost in the Shell. The sentient program’s communications package is necessary for the “One’s” eventual planned destiny – this is part of the architect’s control loop whereby the One returns to the source and freely agrees to let the human portion of him die, and then freely communicates the sentient AI part of him back to the source to reboot the matrix. The sentient portion of the One isn’t dead, and may eventually return to the Matrix, similar to how the sentient portion of Seraph (a former “One”) has done.

So Neo has the ability to communicate with the Source and, because of his unique purpose (to understand and update the Matrix, he has “sysadmin-like” machine city powers in a computer sense required to reboot the matrix (after all, this is his intended purpose). These two aspects – his sys-admin ability and wireless communications ability - provide that rationale for Neo’s ability to communicate/attack/destroy other machines and programs from the source both internally in the matrix and externally (wirelessly) in the real world. It’s also clear that Neo has the ability to see energy similar to the sentinels - this is different from a broadcast signal. Basically, Neo was given the same capabilities for sensory perception as the machines, and is the ONLY human that has the capability to send and receive wireless communications. Incidentally, for those matrix fans watching at home, this is why the 13th floor scenario (matrix within a matrix) makes no sense.