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Garage Tinkerers Claim Wireless Last-Mile Solution

Posted by timothy on from the believe-when-it's-under-the-tree dept.

BrianWCarver writes: "The NYTimes is reporting that two guys in their garage have designed a low-cost wireless broadband solution that can transmit up to 20 miles. (A previous story described a 7km achievement in Australia.) Their company is called Etherlinx and they use the Wi-Fi 802.11b standard in a repeater antenna that people can attach to the outside of their homes. The technology, which apparently costs under $100, has been operating in a small for-pay trial in Oakland, CA for a year. Is this a solution to the 'last-mile' problem, hope for rural areas, and the death of cable/DSL? Read and be the judge."

5 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Sad by gazbo · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    I've never seen a more pathetic attempt to get FP. Let me guess...You saw a story with no comments, and thought you could get FP without being modded down by referring to the subject in hand in some vague way.

    In fact, you were no way near first post, loser, and you will shortly be modded to -1, redundant.

  2. A slightly offtopic observation by GePS · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    has anyone noted how arguments about processors never really win anyone over. AMD's good, Intel's good too, the competition keeps the price down, and the consumer wins. yay.

    Now just imagine if there were such competition for a certain software company in Redmond...

  3. Re:But what kind of data connection do they get 25 by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Your dancing should be classed as an offensive weapon. I think it's given me post traumatic stress disorder.

    --
    That was classic intercourse!
  4. Large infrastructure companies the problem by --daz-- · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    As long as major companies like AT&T are gobbling up smaller companies, and Congress is removing all semblance of competition, these companies will continue to gobble up all the bandwidth until just a few companies own it all.

    And as long as that is the case, they are going to purposely keep supply short so bandwidth prices remain high which renders broadband-to-the-home just about as useless or expensive as it is today.

    If these companies would open up their pipes, or at least 10% of the bandwidth they're holding back, the prices would plummit and having a 10mbps 2-way connection to the house would be cheap.

    These companies are actively resisting commoditizing bandwidth. That's the major reason Enron collapsed. Enron was known for commoditizing non-traditional markets. They bet the whole company on trading bandwidth as a commodity and all the big telcos shut them down.

    Apparently AT&T and the like prefer colluding with their "competitors" to reduce supply and keep prices rediculously high.

  5. Re:What's with the French Engineers? by drooling-dog · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Screw the broadband... I'll take the wine and the mistress!