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It is about 100km from Guam itself hence why it could use a microwave backup.

For a single hop 100km line-of-sight radio path that just skims the sea in the middle of the path, the antennas would have to be 150m tall on both ends (or some combination of appropriate heights). Those are mighty tall towers, which might explain the storm damage. If you want to clear 80% of the 1st Fresnel zone, you'd need an additional 33m at the middle of the path.

They are good for 30 miles - if there is a clear path.
This is not just line of sight - but slightly more than this - the path cannot go just past obstacles.
http://www.proxim.com/products/knowledge-center/calculations/calculations-fresnel-clearance-zone

For a 30 mile link, the fresnel zone reaches 100 feet in the middle of the link - if anything is in this zone, then the signal will be severely affected.
Add to this the limitation of sight due to a non-flat horizon - 150 feet towers are needed just to get minimum line of sight.
For flat land with trees up to 30 feet in places in the middle, for example, that adds up to a total of (100/2)+30+150 =
230 feet towers.

If one end is at altitude - you still may need a significant tower in order to clear the fresnel zone.

This isn't "new" technology. I have a book on wireless backhaul technology that's 6 years old and has information on 68GHz links gigabit links. At that time there was no commercial product available, but the information was included because they knew it would be coming. Proxim also makes a commercial setup currently (granted it's only 1.25 Gbps, but it's on the shelf right now, and has been for a while) product link.

These 30GHz+ links operate over a very short distance, less than 1 Km, and must have a clear line of sight (which is actual an area, see Fresnel Zones). As PP mentioned anything getting in the way will kill the signal; at higher frequencies/distances even rain or snow. As usual wiki has a good article on EHF.

I had a similar problem. I eventually solved it when a new subdivision went in about a half mile from our farm. Comcast wired the subdivision, but wanted many thousands of dollars to extend it on to our farm. So I rented a shelf in the garage of one of my new neighbors and got Comcast service to the shelf. Then using a couple Proxim Tsunami radios, I setup a wireless link from my neighbor's garage to one of my farm fields. Using Power Over Ethernet, I was able to string an ethernet cable out to the antenna and radio in the field through a couple of my greenhouses. It could probably have been done cheaper, but since my business depends on reliable service that I didn't have to muck about with it very much, I went commercial. I blogged about it and posted some photos when I finished the project: "The New Internet Connection"

--Video Card - I strongly recommend Nvidia. I realize that's more challenging in a laptop, but their drivers and support are much better.
--Wireless Capability - Personally, I PCMCIA wireless over built-in, but in any case make sure the wireless chipset is well supported. I use a proxim card which worked with next to no effort.
--Sound Card - While I seriously doubt you could find a laptop sound card that isn't supported, it's still worth a look. Nothing makes me frown faster than a lack of tunes. --Network Card - Well, maybe no network access could make me frown faster. Linux supports a large variety of NICs, but be on the lookout for Broadcom based cards. If it's a 3com, Intel, or Realtek chipset, you're almost certainly a winner.

If you make good decisions on those, your shiny new laptop should work very well. As far as dual-booting goes, I just have one major caution: install Windows first. Why? Because many Linux partitioning programs pay no attention to cylinder boundaries. Windows will then freak out and "fix" the error by moving your partitions to the nearest boundary. Fixing this is not fun.

http://www.proxim.com/products/bwa/multipoint/MP11 -R/

This is their cheap-end stuff, but it will do Point-to-Point, Point-to-Multi-Point. I've worked with it up to 6 miles over land. 60Mbps theorhetical throughput, 30-50mbps can be had with multiple TCP connections. It can run on the 2.4, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.8Ghz bands.

Proxim has stuff that will do strict point-to-point up to 1.5Gbps on the unlicensed 60 Ghz spectrum

http://www.proxim.com/products/bwa/multipoint/MP11 -R/

This is their cheap-end stuff, but it will do Point-to-Point, Point-to-Multi-Point. I've worked with it up to 6 miles over land. 60Mbps theorhetical throughput, 30-50mbps can be had with multiple TCP connections. It can run on the 2.4, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.8Ghz bands.

Proxim has stuff that will do strict point-to-point up to 1.5Gbps on the unlicensed 60 Ghz spectrum

Check out Proxim AP-700 It support 802.11abg, 802.11i AES, etc.
Proxim also has has other AP's that support 802.11i. I think the D-Link 7200AP also suport 802.11i, but I may be wrong. Oh yeah, and you can get 'em "right now."

It's an Orinoco BG-2000. Any suggestions?

I will agree with the dlink sucking. I had one and it always locked up on me. I recently replaced it with a Orinoco BG-2000 and zero problems and it runs like a dream. I think it also looks better than many of the other stuff out there. It is a bit more expensive but when it comes to computers and tech you really do get what you pay for.

Did you look at Proxim's Tsunami MP.11 line? They have some great features, such as provisioning directly from the base station, etc...

http://www.proxim.com/products/all/orinoco/client/ abgcard/index.html

Yesterday I submitted A Plan For A Wireless Park in Portland. Portland is re-designing its Waterfront Park.

They liked it! I got an immediate response from the people in charge who said they'd CC the wireless ideas to everyone in the department and include it in their newsletter.

I like the idea of interactive, engaging and site-specific applications. The Dialtone Symphony (.ram) is wholly produced through the choreographed ringing of people's own cell phones. Here are some other ideas:

• Talking maniquins
• Interactive Sculpture
• Triggered light/sound sequencers
• City Clouds
• 360 Live Video at public events
• Wi-Fi in Stadiums
• Traffic Maps
• Visitor Information and Narrated Neighborhood Tours
• Videoconference to linked Kiosks around the state or in nearby hotels.
• Real-time Location Information for event managers with devices like Vocera's communicator badge
• Jogging kiosks with comparitive times, personal history and bio monitor
• E-mail/picture kiosks
• RF-ID wrist bands for kids ($2.99) or "find friends" (free)
• Weather, news and park info
• Recreation Bulletin Board
• Live bird cams
• Events triggered by cell calls
• Jam sessions
• Card tournaments
• Yahoo games

The Public Review Draft of Portland's Waterfront Park Master Plan is available on-line.

The Morrison Bridge, in the center of Waterfront Park, has phone line access. An Orinoco 2500 ($1000) could drive Wi-Fi repeaters on the north end (near Saturday Market) and the south end, (near the Alexis Hotel), providing blanket coverage. The repeaters could be camouflaged as animals or Oregon historic figures. Waterfront Park also has a direct shot to the Council Crest tower where Winfield Wireless has a wireless ISP.

Rent out Segway Scooters with built-in Pocket PCs. Your GPS position would trigger Oregon Historical Society's Narrated Neighborhood Tours, Portland Visitor's Association's Self-Guided Tours, Portland Metro Maps or Lewis and Clark Maps. Wireless cameras could be helpful for the police, too.

Jacksonville Florida's free wireless hot spots provide tourist information as well as internet access. Multi-lingual kiosks, incorporating webtablets with language translation are available now. Text to speech can be output in a variety of languages. And it sounds good. Human voice samples are now incorporated into text to speech. Choose a language, respond by voice.

Don't give up! Put some wireless ideas together and send it to your Parks Department.

Dreams DO come true!

Interactive, engaging and site-specific applications are a click away. The Dialtone Symphony (.ram) is wholly produced through the choreographed ringing of people's own cell phones. Here are some other ideas:

• Talking maniquins
• Interactive Sculpture
• Triggered light/sound sequencers
• City Clouds
• 360 Live Video at public events
• Wi-Fi in Stadiums
• Traffic Maps
• Visitor Information and Narrated Neighborhood Tours
• Videoconference to linked Kiosks around the state or in nearby hotels.
• Real-time Location Information for event managers with devices like Vocera's communicator badge
• Jogging kiosks with comparitive times, personal history and bio monitor
• E-mail/picture kiosks
• RF-ID wrist bands for kids ($2.99) or "find friends" (free)
• Weather, news and park info
• Recreation Bulletin Board
• Live bird cams
• Events triggered by cell calls
• Jam sessions
• Card tournaments
• Yahoo games

The Public Review Draft of Portland's Waterfront Park Master Plan is available on-line.

The Morrison Bridge, in the center of Waterfront Park, has phone line access. An Orinoco 2500 ($1000) could drive Wi-Fi repeaters on the north end (near Saturday Market) and the south end, (near the Alexis Hotel), providing blanket coverage. The repeaters could be camouflaged as animals or Oregon historic figures. Waterfront Park also has a direct shot to the Council Crest tower where Winfield Wireless has a wireless ISP.

Rent out Segway Scooters with built-in Pocket PCs. Your GPS position would trigger Oregon Historical Society's Narrated Neighborhood Tours, Portland Visitor's Association's Self-Guided Tours, Portland Metro Maps or Lewis and Clark Maps. Wireless cameras could be helpful for the police, too.

Jacksonville Florida's free wireless hot spots provide tourist information as well as internet access. Multi-lingual kiosks, incorporating webtablets with language translation are available now. Text to speech can be output in a variety of languages. And it sounds good. Human voice samples are now incorporated into text to speech. Choose a language, respond by voice.

Parks have not caught up with the wireless society. Let's make it happen!

yeah, and netgear, proxim, hp... so?

the poster already linked to plenty of manufacturers of these products. he's asking which solution is best, not which brand...

Here is a nice comparison of B and A on 80211 planet. Also, a whitepaper for A is available at Proxim Communications. Also, don't forget the FAQ!

My personal feeling about this: The U.S. government should sponsor a 802.11a nationwide network, so we can all have cell phone and data access anywhere, and a provider can 'buy' an area from the government to charge wireless rates for. Kind of like the current system we have in place for land-line phones.

Everyone comes out happy:
the cell phone company has a local monopoly
the customer has access to wireless data and phone everywhere
the government 's pocket gets fatter.

Actually, the technology is very different. Yes, it will equal the same in the end, eventully it will get crowded and cause collisions, but it will happen less quickly than it did with 802.11b.

802.11a uses a technology called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), which significantly increases channel availability, mostly due to its ability to split them into seperate, more unique channels. It manages to create more independant channels by combining low speed subcarriers into a larger high-speed channel.

Check out this good article about this:
Proxim Article on OFDM and 802.11a

We set up a small wireless network (5 hosts) at our apartment building to share internet. One of our biggest concerns was interference from other devices. On our limited budget we didn't have the luxury of buying signal testing equipment and AP's to see if 802.11b would be reliable in our building. So in the end, we went with HomeRF 2.0 equipment made by Proxim which has a better range and is much better at avoiding interference than 802.11b and transmits at a similar 10Mbps.

We bought the USB adaptors (for around $80) from Provantage for less than any USB 802.11b adaptors we could find at the time.

There are some limitations with HomeRF, (I don't think roaming between AP's is supported and only drivers for Windows and Mac are provided) but in our situation it was just what we needed and it's worked flawlessly. We've had no network downtime due to interference.

Second, at 2.4 GHz a signal doesn't follow a wire (or a circuit board trace) like it does at 60 Hz. At 2.4 GHz a wire is more of a 'suggestion' than a 'command'. This is why (radar | microwave ovens | certain satellite communication systems) use waveguides instead of wires. It's also one of the reasons everything isn't running at the same clock speed.

Third, one of the Ten Commandments of /. -- Thou shalt query Google.

• Arcowave AWL-1100P
• D-Link DWL-520
• Intel PRO/Wireless 2011B LAN PCI Adapter
• LG Wireless PCI Card
• Linksys WMP11
• Proxim Harmony 802.11b PCI Card
• Samsung SWL-2000P or SWL-2100P

PCI Cards are installed with the PCB facing in the general direction of the processor (in the ATX spec). I don't know the shielding capabilities of circuit board material, but it sure isn't a solid conductor -- and... many of your traces are exposed to the radiation inside the case. This is where I expect problems and performance degradation to have their roots.

Perhaps you remember a few years ago when it was trendy to install shielding around your audio card for a greater Signal/Noise Ratio? I saw people use copper flashing (the stuff you use to keep your roof from leaking) to construct a box, doing a very nice soldering job, use stand-offs for installation... all to remove a little static. The whole trick was to construct a Faraday cage that would allow the ISA connector (remember those?) as little clearance as possible, without actually shorting it.

We may see a resurgence of that technique.

A friend of mine has an Apple Airport set-up, which is 802.11b, in a three story house, and there are dead zones inside the house, on the same floor!

Your buddy in the other building might get some usage, with a high-gain directional antenna on your base station, depending on how well the signal can be reflected.

Or, you could put antennaes on the roof on the south side of both buildings... There are rules to worry about though.

Proxim amd others have complete set-ups for you to try.

Good Luck!

Proxim also has a line of 802.11a stuff, possibly a little further along. They have an Access Point that should be available at the end of November roughly, but the cards are available now supposedly. There is a company called Luna Communications handling the early release stuff.. Lunacom.com

Here's the link to Proxim

We're planning on getting a setup soon, the claim of 54Mbit/s from the x2 technology sounds way too good to be true! Anyone have experience on actual speeds that they get? I've never even gotten close to 1/2 of the 802.11b bandwitdh maximum (11Mbit/s).

Brett

While the improvement in throughput is excellent, it comes at a cost of range. The 5.4GHz spectrum does not carry as far as the 2.4GHz band, used in 802.11b. This difference will be felt the most in long-range applications, whether it be a directional long-shot or the more omni-directional community wireless networks such as BAWUG or Houston-Wireless.

--
The Sphere Guerilla Net
Space City, TX

While the improvement in throughput is excellent, it comes at a cost of range. The 5.4GHz spectrum does not carry as far as the 2.4GHz band, used in 802.11b. This difference will be felt the most in long-range applications, whether it be a directional long-shot or the more omni-directional community wireless networks such as BAWUG or Houston-Wireless.

--
The Sphere Guerilla Net
Space City, TX

Slashdot needs a fact checker.

No. They APs and PC Cards only broadcast in the 5Ghz range. You can see the data sheet here .

You know you would have thought that with all the 802.11b stories on here, somebody would have mentioned the much more secure counterpart to 802.11b -- which is 802.11a, a frequency hopping standard that defines a much much much harder to intercept, much much much more stable, reliable communication (we are talking orders of magnitude) above 802.11b (Oh yeah, and plenty of equipment is available also.)

How come when LAN's go wireless, geeks suddenly forget the basic fundamentals of RADIO which, for the specific technology we are discussing, is almost as well understood as power generation. Wait a minute, but didn't the folks who delegated the IP address space give RADIO OPERATORS a quite enormous chunk for EXPERIMENTATION? Where are all these guys. For instance, the story that ran a few days ago where someone at O'Really (sic) declared that a 802.11b product was good because his microwave oven did not interfere with its operation might have taken one second to read the frequency of his microwave off the little label inside the door and look up the frequency of whatever channel his DSSS radio's was on before realizing that the microwave was (99% likely) not even on the same frequencies.

It's about time for all of you to go out and read how these radios and standards really work before making wild comparisons, accusations, etc. or being suprised when someone points out that the standard is not fundamentally secure. Here's a hint: It was never designed to be any more secure than wireline communications. The amount of money someone would have to spend to tap into your wired LAN is equivalent to the amount of money they would have to spend to intercept your wireless. If you require secure communications over wireless, use IPSec or encrypted tunnels. Just like you would do on the wireline.

Get it together. I am losing faith in you guys.

~GoRK

"The Stratum 100 and Stratum 20 are point-to-point transparent MAC layer bridges which provide full duplex 100bT connections over links up to seven miles (11.2 km)."

... and ...

"The Stratum MP is a multipoint learning bridge which provides half duplex 10bT connections to multiple facilities over links up to 12 miles under FCC rules, and over 5 km under ETSI rules."

I used to do some contract work for WaveSpan, the guys who developed these and got bought by Proxim.

Wouldn't be too hard. Perhaps you could talk them into setting up a point-to-point wireless bridge between the campus and your apartment. ;)

One option might be to consider MobileStar. They're rolling out public access points all over the U.S., using Proxim Harmony gear (an 802.11b or OpenAir FHSS PCMCIA card).

I think the cost is about $30 to $80 per month, depending on how many minutes one wants to sign up for. This is for speeds up to 1.5Mbps.

Why not use one of the existing 802.11 wireless-to-ether bridges that exist and hide it all in something watertight like one of those sprinkler controller boxes? Then all you need to run outside is power and a cat5 line.
There are numerous products that do this. Check out:
Proxim's ethernet bridge
WebGear Aviator Pro Access Point

You could probably throw together a PC-based solution for the same cost as one of these items. On the other hand, these dissipate little heat (no trouble sinking heat from the enclosure) and have no moving parts (operational temp range is most likely much higher). And since they're turn key products, you don't have to worry about adminning another box.

As a side note: I bought myself a pair of WebGear Aviator 2.4 wireless cards from CompUSA for $139.99 with a $40 rebate. They kick all ass. I can get a connection to my desktop from my notebook from anywhere in the house. Range and coverage are excellent. They do full IEEE 802.11 and there's Linux drivers (read SUPPORTED.CARDS in the root of pcmcia_cs sources) that work pretty well. Couch surfing for everyone!

I have some cards that work under windows. They're Proxim Rangelan2, and they do peer-to-peer. 2Mbps max.

There is unofficial linux driver support for the card, but it's not too reliable in my experience.

You guys keep saying "that'd be nice to put linux on it when it comes out" but there are already several products that are touchscreen laptops. Most with attached keyboards, one or two without. Here are two of them:

• Fujitsu Biblio MC8 - touchscreen laptop (2.6 lbs, P200-233)
• Panasonic CF01 - touchscreen notepad, external keyboard (2.2 lbs, Am586-133)

Additionally, wireless networking is starting to be cheaply available (albeit a short range of ~150 feet indoors) - Diamond HomeFree costs only about $100-$150 a node. CHEAP compared to previously available wireless network cards! NOTE: Proxim is offering a product (Symphony) hat has identical specs. I'm not sure whose product is whose here. I suspect that proxim is the mfg, and diamond is OEM'ing it.

You guys keep saying "that'd be nice to put linux on it when it comes out" but there are already several products that are touchscreen laptops. Most with attached keyboards, one or two without. Here are two of them:

• Fujitsu Biblio MC8 - touchscreen laptop (2.6 lbs, P200-233)
• Panasonic CF01 - touchscreen notepad, external keyboard (2.2 lbs, Am586-133)

Additionally, wireless networking is starting to be cheaply available (albeit a short range of ~150 feet indoors) - Diamond HomeFree costs only about $100-$150 a node. CHEAP compared to previously available wireless network cards! NOTE: Proxim is offering a product (Symphony) hat has identical specs. I'm not sure whose product is whose here. I suspect that proxim is the mfg, and diamond is OEM'ing it.