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Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks
DarrellD writes: "This story on Business Wire points out the new Wireless MAN standards approved as IEEE 802.16. More high speed wireless coming our way soon."
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Could this standard be used to bring high-speed connectivity to neighborhoods? Back home we pay yearly dues to the neighborhood organization, it would be easy to rent out a few T1 lines, or a T3...
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
How soon before I can set my cellphone to VOIP mode and wander around town making calls all over the world on my 'unlimited' ISP account?
Until then, my little vaio could get a wireless card and get tossed into my backpack for this purpose.
Of course, encryption and authorization schemes will have to be wildly more strict than the current systems to keep people from 'war driving' even more than they are now.
Plus, of course, this moves the access points out of the homes and offices and into the hands of the ISPs and providers. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing - I like the grassroots feel of the efforts going on now. (Sure, the two could exist side-by-side, but a lot of wireless equipment would be made redundant if the services are cheap enough.)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Wireless Man, Wireless Man.
Doing the things that wireless can.
What's he like? It's not important.
Wireless Man.
Is he a standard or is he a spec?
When he's in the last mile does he connect?
Or does the mile connect him instead?
Nobody knows. Wireless Man.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Should some of my pals all get huge antennae and blocks of ip address, domain names, mail and news servers?
It sounds like a great idea, even windows is ahead on this with XP's wireless lan features [i do believe any PC is capable of using wireless... so why is it one of their selling points? It's just software!]
Could this be pulled off by people with DSL/Cable/Sat connections? Hell, could any old 56ghey serve as an extra uplink?
My point is: Let's turn this out gnutella style. Anyone with Cable/DSL gets an antenna, plugs it in, and leaves it on. He adjusts what percentage of bandwidth he wants to share - and can turn it off whenever he wants. Could serve him because he's got a laptop. He's asleep, he's not using that bandwidth. He's at work, he can't use it there.
Maybe he's neighbor's got one too. Maybe lots of people do, and soon they are everywhere!
Too bad no one would pay for the ISP if their neighbor has his on and open.
I guess we would still need someone to pay for the T1 [or T3, redundant OC-3] and all pitch in. But would it be any cheaper or better?
I guess I'll just have to buy the book. Or wait for this crap to come out from Clear Channel.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I was under the impression that wireless MANs already existed - I know there are several vendors that have products that can push over 40 Mbps up to 15 miles. it's business class service, not for the average home or consumer, but it's already out there. companies like airBand in the northeast, MAE Dulles around DC, Teligent (defunct), even AT&T and Sprint had broadband wireless offerings (though they might have been dropped recently). yes, they require an antenna or dish. no you can't use them with your PDA. there is no indication that 802.16 wil bring these connection speeds to your wristwatch either.
at wirelessman.org there doesn't seem to be very much information unless you want to pay for the draft of the spec. does anyone have any real information on 802.16?
I never thought I'd be picking at details like this, but that wasn't a story on Business Wire, it was a press release. a story would have followed up on the details that were not covered by the release.