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New Wireless Technologies

Codex The Sloth writes "The Economist has an article on 4 emerging wireless technologies: (1) Smart Antennas for improved base-station capacity, (2) Mesh Networks to make each wireless reciever also be a relay, (3) Ad hoc networking to use network devices as routers, (4) Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly (but only for distances of 10 feet...). Some of these are already in use while others are still in the lab."

89 comments

  1. 10 feet? by PseudoThink · · Score: 1

    Doh...and I had such high hopes for UWB.

  2. Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Brento · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly (but only for distances of 10 feet...).

    Also accomplished by tossing DVD's back and forth....what's the point of that? I mean, only ten feet? Why not just use a cable at that point?

    --
    What's your damage, Heather?
    1. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by sailgreg · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Yeah, 10ft is pointless

    2. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by dubiousmike · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why not?

      I know people who use their car to drive less than one block...

      Fat bastards.

    3. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by mblase · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I mean, only ten feet? Why not just use a cable at that point?

      Synchronizing your high-capacity portable MP3 player or digital camera without having to buy a USB hub, for two. Bluetooth is one thing, but being able to move that much data in mere seconds has a real appeal.

    4. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Oily+Tuna · · Score: 1

      But you don't need much improvement before it becomes really useful.

      At 50ft or so you've got your house covered.

      --
      Mmmmmmm ... sushi.
    5. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by sailgreg · · Score: 1

      Ok, that would be nice, but is it worth the cost? a wire might cost 2 or 3 bucks but this is at least a thousand bucks, for now at least!

    6. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Telastyn · · Score: 2

      Probably because the 100mbs is a bonus to cooking your late night snacks!

    7. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Brento · · Score: 1

      But you don't need much improvement before it becomes really useful. At 50ft or so you've got your house covered

      Maybe YOUR house. But put a wall or two in the way, and you can't tell me that it's a better system than 802.11a, which is already designed for that kind of power.

      --
      What's your damage, Heather?
    8. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read carefully, we talking about millibit *times* seconds here, or if you prefer, 100 millibit/Hz. Now, what frequency are they using? A couple GHz? That give us a few 100 million bits, i.e. a few megabytes. Am I right, or am I reading too much into someone else's sloppy notation?

    9. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ultrawideband isn't affected by walls.

    10. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Jeremiah+Blatz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      10 feet isn't that bad because it's not a limit of the technology, it's a limit of the FCC. If there's not interference at 10 feet, they'll up the allowable range. Also, the 10 foot range is presumably using omnidirectional antennas. You could presumably get better range using smart antennas, as long as your total emissions weren't high.

    11. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      10 Meters (~33 feet)not 10 feet. This distance is FCC limited. It sounds it could be capible of greater distances.

      The FCC ruling limits the range of UWB transmissions to about ten metres, although longer ranges may be allowed in future once the question of interference has been sorted out. However, UWB is capable of a data rate of at least 100 megabits per second over such distances.

    12. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      802.11b cards were $100-150 when they first became popular a couple of years ago. I'm sure they costed even more before that. Now they can be had for $35.

      New technology is always expensive. Prices come down.

    13. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by kalgen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Also accomplished by tossing DVD's back and forth....what's the point of that? I mean, only ten feet? Why not just use a cable at that point?

      Ask anyone wielding a remote control.

    14. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      er...

      lets see, something with the matter penetrating ability of ULF with decent bandwidth...

      /me coughs

    15. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by Osiris+Ani · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I mean, only ten feet?

      It would be nice if the editors read the articles prior to hastily posting references to them. In such an ideal situation, the text could have been corrected to read "10 meters," not feet, which makes much more sense.

      Not that wireless networking of 10 feet wouldn't be useful in and of itself. Even then I wouldn't have to face the dilemma - in my apartment - of how to implement a fast network between the servers in the lab downstairs and the workstations in the office upstairs without stringing an ethernet cable through a door and up a wall (and without making any holes).

    16. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by brianosaurus · · Score: 1

      Exactly. In the future when we have thousands of TV channels, we'll need that bandwidth to surf through them. IR can only "press buttons" so fast...

      --
      blog
    17. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by lizrd · · Score: 1

      I'm not that fat.

      --
      I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
    18. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by 56ker · · Score: 1

      "I know people who use their car to drive less than one block..." - ever pointed out to them it probably takes less time (and money) to walk one block than drive it?

    19. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by sharkey · · Score: 2

      Fat bastards

      An aquaintance of mine is just the opposite. He has to get out of the car and walk a bit in various spots, to let his wife drive over the raised manhole covers that their car won't clear when he's in it.

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  3. I still like by sheepab · · Score: 1

    ...the article about the wireless technology in the 75ghz range that can span miles and maintain speeds of gigaBYTES a second. I dont like the fact that UWB can only go 10 ft at that speed :-(. Will we see any improvements?

  4. uwb can go further more than 10 feet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    there are several good articles about uwb at UWBPlanet. It appears the Economist is quite wrong about UWB.

  5. Ten feet by cperciva · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why not just use a cable at that point?

    A cable is probably fine if the stations aren't moving, but that is not necessarily the case. One can easily imagine robots which will be moving around within a single room; even though the range would be sufficient, any cable could very easily get tied into knots.

    1. Re:Ten feet by dfn5 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Right. It would be a real bummer if the master computer sent an order to kill those pesky humans and the robot got snapped back by the network cable. I mean how embarrassing.

      --
      -- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
    2. Re:Ten feet by wompser · · Score: 1

      naaahhh, that won't be a problem at all. Who in their right mind would build a robot that was not equiped with at least a few high powered lasers?

      --
      .....
    3. Re:Ten feet by p7 · · Score: 1

      Well, at ten feet that robot could patrol my cubicle, but not my living room. I guess I could mount it in the middle of the room on the ceiling, but that would be a pain getting a cable to that point and power. Luckily the real range mentioned is 10 meters.

    4. Re:Ten feet by sgtsanity · · Score: 1

      That did happen in an Invader Zim episode.

  6. Standards... by Dilbert_ · · Score: 1

    All I hope for is that they agree on one standard before beginning mass deployment. Not the early-cellphone debacle all over again please...

    --
    superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
  7. What about by eclectro · · Score: 5, Funny

    the little sticker you put on the back of your cell phone to increase range. Isn't that an emerging wireless technology???

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    1. Re:What about by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 2

      Have you seen the way they show the antenna growing in the commercials, so you can see what the antenna "performs" like after you put on the sticker?

      All I can say is they should get the same artists to do the Viagra ads.

      --
      ± 29 dB
  8. The Ultimate Wireless Network. by Real+World+Stuff · · Score: 5, Funny

    Me: Hey Joe, got that file?
    Joe: Yeah, it's on a floppy.
    Me: Toss it here.
    Joe: Frisbee's the Floppy across the room (20 ft. [6.1 meters]).
    Me: Catches floppy (Sure it was aimed at my head).
    Me: Thanks.
    Joe: Make sure it gets to Mike tomorrow.
    Me: Ok. (uses sneaker net)


    Look familiar? :)

    --
    If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
    1. Re:The Ultimate Wireless Network. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      floppy!? heh... peecee user..

    2. Re:The Ultimate Wireless Network. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah...but it's hard to throw a floppy as far as a wireless signal will travel :)

    3. Re:The Ultimate Wireless Network. by xinu · · Score: 1
      And it takes 30 seconds more to mount the floppy. So it took over a minute to transfer 1.44Mb a distance 20ft.


      Thats just horriable network lag.

    4. Re:The Ultimate Wireless Network. by Cryptosporidium · · Score: 1

      Don't worry! Recent advances in network hardware uses cutting-edge DVD discs, with 4.7 GB capacity!

    5. Re:The Ultimate Wireless Network. by SirRichardPumpaloaf · · Score: 1

      Is it okay if I file down the 'cutting-edges' first or will that limit the bandwidth? I sort of like having all of my fingers.

  9. Hm... by Niles_Stonne · · Score: 1, Funny

    I can see it now...

    The New Corporate Structure

    June 21, 2002

    New York, Due to the advent of new short-range high speed Mesh Networking systems there has been a huge increase in the need for temp employees. Apparently, when CEOs discovered that their new high-speed UltraNet(R) connections would only work ten feet away from another UltraNet(R) based system they decided to hire UltraNet(R) Extenders(UE) - temporary employees that are specially trained to walk ten feet away from the CEO with an UltraNet(R) rebroadcaster.

    Some UE chains - lines of UltraNet(R) Extenders - have been known to reach twenty or thirty UEs, with the record taking place between the law firm of Samuel, Johonson, & Dickie and the local courthouse three blocks away. When one of the UEs was asked about the experience his response was "I'm just glad I'm not one of them that needed to stand in the road." Of the two injuries incured during the record-breaking event both happened to UEs standing in the streets.

    --
    Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
  10. The Ultimate Singles Network. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FUNNY!

    So. . .you're single, or married to a fat girl, right?

  11. Latency by papasui · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What kind of latency does this add up to? I mean thats really the weakest link when it comes to doing things that require fast response like online games. It's not neccesarily how much data that can get there in a specific time but how quickly you can get the data to a location.

    1. Re:Latency by jbf · · Score: 2

      Ad hoc networks can support videoconferencing over LANs (in moving cars)... it's really not that big a deal. You just need to be proactive about link breakage prediction, then you can go 4 or even 6 hops with very reasonable latency and jitter.

    2. Re:Latency by cnkeller · · Score: 2

      We're, using a similar technology called Adaptive Beamforming. Our airframe gives us a latency of 60-80ms. We're still refining things, so the hope is it will be at the lower end of that range. We're non-line of sight, long range (3-5 miles+) and near symmetric T1 speeds. Coming soon to a field trial near you.

      --

      there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots

  12. Lasers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Scientific American has an article about the last mile by laser.

    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00080 69 E-808A-1D06-8E49809EC588EEDF&catID=2

  13. Oops, looks like it's meters, not feet. Phew! (NT) by PseudoThink · · Score: 1

    NT = no text, foo.

  14. Ad hoc network : Gnutella by mhesseltine · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't this run into the same problem that the gnutella network has run into? I mean, as has been reported on /. (too lazy to search for the article), Gnutella doesn't scale very well because you have too much burden in handling the peer-to-peer communication. As more people got connected, wouldn't you run out of bandwidth for actual data?

    --
    Overrated / Underrated : Moderation :: Anonymous Coward : Posting
    1. Re:Ad hoc network : Gnutella by jbf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Great question. It turns out that ad hoc network capacity is limited; in a randomly moving network, with sane discovery procedures, bandwidth per user goes down at some suprising rate. However, if your communications are local, that isn't a big deal. Also, several research groups have looked into cluster-based routing as a way to make things scale better, so only cluster-heads need to route amongst themselves, and the other nodes just go through the cluster heads.

      I suppose gnutella could also benefit from such an architecture... I seem to recall that some P2P systems have "supernodes." However, the attractiveness of p2p systems is that they're really hard to shut down; 0wning all the supernodes would hurt. (Not shutting them down, just making them stop forwarding requests) Also, if one of these evil companies that advertise using P2P becomes a supernode, there's no end to the evil that company can perpetrate.

      This is all a vast oversimplification, of course...

    2. Re:Ad hoc network : Gnutella by eracerblue · · Score: 1

      p2p baby.

      i can't wait to hack-up calls across the country bouncing from cell to cell.

      the phone companies will no longer be able to price gouge. ;P this is the re-evolution of mp3/p2p.

  15. P2P Wireless Networks by mir@ge · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IANANE(I am not a network engineer), but it seems to me that widespread mesh and ad hoc networks decentralized nature might prove difficult to "police". Already we see Snort and other tools designed to break into exsisting WiFi networks. The distributed nature of these new networks would lend itself to such attacks. While strong encryption would prevent a properly configured station from being cracked, the real problem with WiFi and perhaps these new networks is foolish people leaving them wide open. Then there is the question of accountablity. What happens when my feed starts providing resticted intellectual property like "Oops!...I did it again"? Just who gets sued. Present laws dictate that ISPs are not liable as long as they take steps to immediately cut the source. Assuming, you would be protected under such a law it seems to me the central feature of the network(relaying others data) is discouraged by legal the standards.

    1. Re:P2P Wireless Networks by jbf · · Score: 2

      First of all, ad hoc networks are currently focused on applications where everyone has a common goal. If you're going to work in an area outside of that, you need security. Jamming, etc can be worked out with spread spectrum or licensing (then it's illegal to jam, not that laws are always so easy to enforce), so mostly you need to worry about the routing and access control. Foolish people leaving them wide open won't happen if people are businesses trying to make a product out of this (otherwise, you're giving away product for free), and those who set up their own "open" manets are like those who leave open 802.11 nets. (Maybe a bit worse, but not much given how easy MAC addr spoofing is).

      Security is a young and pretty exciting area in wireless network routing; some work by Zygmunt Haas, David Johnson, and Adrian Perrig, there are a couple tech reports by Brian Levine, Elizabeth Royer, Robin Kravetz (those you have to dig a bit deeper for...)

      IANAL, but the legal issues come down to two things: (1) whoever was doing things with intent (eg, who put the file on their hard drive and opened it to the network intending for it to be copied, or better yet, who was doing the copying), and (2) did you do anything actually negligent.

  16. intelligent routing.. by __aawavt7683 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Couldn't really think of a better/propper name for it. But, I'm referring to that .. "activity" where a piece of mail was given to someone, and they were told a destination. So it'd pass through a shop owner to a company to a branch in a different country and get to the president sort of thing.. basically, just "fling" it and it starts going in the right direction.

    This was thought of with routing. But, it can't work as things are set up now. The reason this works is because they're all grouped. Continents, countries, shop owners, policical candidates and such... computers are just 192.168.0.5. The other IP's can be given out randomly to any place at all.

    Antennas like this, if they were to route in the same way, would need to know where they are, where the message wanted to go, in the physical world. Then the other antennas would need to be able to determine if they were between the source and the destination. And to prevent duplicate messages, tell people "I got it!!" like a football game(...).

    so.. basically I'm saying until the way computers are groupped/assigned IP's is done in some logical manner like countries, the "human" (flinging? just send it out and hope it gets tehre...) form of routing won't work with computers.

    just my comments on a topic that was brought up before..

    -DrkShadow

  17. 10 feet!!! by SHEENmaster · · Score: 0

    Wahooo!!!! Better throw away all that useless ethernet cable that I've collected, we are all goin back to 10baseT!!!!!

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  18. Errors in the post by sheepab · · Score: 5, Informative

    From Slashdot: 4) Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly (but only for distances of 10 feet...).

    From the article: The FCC ruling limits the range of UWB transmissions to about ten metres, although longer ranges may be allowed in future once the question of interference has been sorted out. However, UWB is capable of a data rate of at least 100 megabits per second over such distances.

    The first thing, the Slashdot post makes it sound like 10 ft is the maximum UWB can go, and second, its 10 METERS not 10 FEET

    1. Re:Errors in the post by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 3, Informative

      Interference from UWB may be a real problem, according to some tests reported in the latest issue of Aviation Week.

      Tests were brief and therefore not completely realistic, but showed actual loss of function of aircraft electronics. At 20 dB over typical single-device levels they were completely shutting down some of a 747's navigational equipment. That's 100 times the normal power level, but consider: what if a hundred passengers are carrying UWB devices? Or what if 20dB isn't enough margin to prevent partial interference from a single device?

  19. troll... by jbf · · Score: 2

    (so it appears, from previous comment posts). Either that or someone really uneducated about network addressing, CIDR, etc...

    1. Re:troll... by paul_cairney · · Score: 1

      CIDR etc doesnt realy work when you have no idea of the heirarchy of the network such as in Mesh based wireless network.

  20. Re:P2P Wireless Networks - owned by who? by visualight · · Score: 1

    Then there is the question of accountablity. What happens when my feed starts providing resticted intellectual property like "Oops!...I did it again"? Just who gets sued. Present laws dictate that ISPs are not liable as long as they take steps to immediately cut the source. Assuming, you would be protected under such a law it seems to me the central feature of the network(relaying others data) is discouraged by legal the standards.

    I think it comes down to who owns the antenna. If I own the antenna that's up on my roof and there are many people in my area with their own antenna then who's to stop us from developing our own protocol(s) to share data with each other directly without paying anyone? AOL et al will be trying to get legislation passed that outlaws people from communicating with their neighbor without a license. To get a license you would also have to submit to monitoring by the FBI, CIA, MPAA, RIAA, and maybe the DEA should be thrown in there too.

    --
    Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
  21. Re:P2P Wireless Networks - owned by who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, I forgot to mention the homeland security thingy.

    two minutes, two minutes dougie fresh you're on...on-on-on.

  22. How do you make an UWB signal!? by nomel · · Score: 1

    I haven't seen any technical papers about UWB, and i have some questions.

    How do you make the signal? Is it just a pulse at many frequencies (f, f+k, f+2k, f+nk) where f is the lower limit, and f+nk is the upper?

    Also, looking at an article at UWBPlanet.com, I see
    "It can penetrate solid obstacles with virtually no degradation and has location capabilities that make GPS look like a blindfolded troll with a club. Furthermore, its location-sensing abilities are not limited to outdoor use in any way, as GPS solutions are."
    What kind of solid objects do they mean (metallic, I think not)? Is the lack of degregation because the frequency range is so wide that, if the absorbtion of the object is frequency specific (resonates, etc), there are many frequencies that do not get absorbed?
    It seems that they are being a little over confident...if your in a Faradays cage (building, or cage, heheh), you should still get poor to nill reception unless the wavelength of the signal was smaller than the smallest openening in the room (then of course you would be able to pick up a weak signal).

    "Only a UWB receiver that knows the exact pulse sequence generated by the transmitted signal can in fact make use of the information in the signal"
    This sounds like some kind of frequency hopping scheme more than anything. Unless it used some sort of TDMA scheme.

    Anyone?

    -Nomel

    1. Re:How do you make an UWB signal!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a good story on UWB
      http://www.redherring.com/insider/2002/0618/u wb061 802.html

    2. Re:How do you make an UWB signal!? by ispdrudge · · Score: 2, Informative

      See the papers on timedomain.com.
      Their UWB scheme uses .5 nanosec pulses with a
      gaussian waveform that spreads the signal very
      thinly and evenly over a very large spectrum.
      A 100 kbit/s receiver will listen for these pulses at a sequence of 1 ns wide windows.
      The window sequence is pseudorandom, with something over 100k windows distributed over 1 sec. The
      hard part of the technology comes from :
      very wideband antennas
      syncing ghz oscillators at transmitter and rcvr
      precise timing (they have a dedicated chip)
      establishing the sequence with multiple receivers

  23. Free Wireless P2P Cellphones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What would it take to have a peer-to-peer cell phone network that does not require cell towers -- or even a phone company!!

  24. DVDs? by newerbob · · Score: 1
    Also accomplished by tossing DVD's back and forth....what's the point of that? I mean, only ten feet? Why not just use a cable at that point?

    Synchronizing your high-capacity portable MP3 player or digital camera without having to buy a USB hub, for two. Bluetooth is one thing, but being able to move that much data in mere seconds has a real appeal. Right.

    It would be a real bummer if the master computer sent an order to kill those pesky humans and the robot got snapped back by the network cable. I mean how embarrassing. Me: Hey Joe, got that file? Joe: Yeah, it's on a floppy. Me: Toss it here.

    Joe: Frisbee's the Floppy across the room (20 ft. [6.1 meters]). Me: Catches floppy (Sure it was aimed at my head). Me: Thanks. Joe: Make sure it gets to Mike tomorrow.

    Me: Ok. (uses sneaker net) (I am not a network engineer), but it seems to me that widespread mesh and ad hoc networks decentralized nature might prove difficult to "police".

    Already we see Snort and other tools designed to break into exsisting WiFi networks. The distributed nature of these new networks is foolish people leaving them wide open.

    Then there is the question of accountablity. What happens when my feed starts providing resticted intellectual property like "Oops!...I did it again"? Just who gets sued. Present laws dictate that ISPs are not liable as long as they take steps to immediately cut the source.

    Assuming, you would be able to determine if they were to route in the same way, would need to know where they are, where the message wanted to go, in the physical world. Then the other antennas would need to know where they are, where the message wanted to go, in the physical world. Then the other!

    --

    --
    Ask the Ya-Hoot Oracle Anything!
  25. Mesh networking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mesh is pretty common in IP over satellite, especially to the edge, right now. Since there is no return path in satellite (or it has really high latency), Mesh is a prime mover.

    Lots of intellectual property already staked out here.

  26. UWB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wake up people this UWB stuff has the potential
    to make buggy whips out of a whole lot of cozy
    arrangements. Let start at the beginning the
    signal passed is in the white noise level all
    across the spectrum with the current regs in place
    and allowed power levels no license is required
    for an effective range of 6-8 miles. Yes it is
    below the current regulation threshold. The
    current noise about UWB is a very concerted effort
    by the powers that be to shove the genie back in
    the bottle. DOD, the Gov., the phone company, the
    cable companies are all are trying desperately to
    control this tech. Picture this --a home based
    wireless phone with a 5 mile range, what happens
    to those high priced spectrum licenses, cable,
    now anyone that can pay the downlink fee can
    start a cable company with no wires, remember
    one of the demo's of this tech shows reliable
    comms thru 3 feet of reinforced concrete with less
    than 1/4 of miliwatt, the last mile, no contest
    bye bye local access fees, dsl overpriced wires,
    security-- do you really want to try to follow
    something that's hopping across 100 mhz with pico
    second timing-- tap that boys couple this with
    an user density in the order of 10-6. The laws to
    govern the above uses came in with the second
    half of satellite laws that allowed two way comms
    a month or so back. The hold up is the DOD doing
    a chicken little the sky is falling act. The
    real kicker is china has been real keen on this
    and may be the one to roll it out. Yes motorola
    intel and company understand this real well. The
    real problem is the current crop of special interest groups and assorted lobbyists that would be left holding the bag i.e. they would have to cozy up to a whole new crowd to be fed. Bear in
    mind the current state of the art started with
    a pissing match between a second year EE under grad and his Prof. in Arkansas, it was financed by chickens. The Gov. made a very concerted effort to put it under the black hole of national security, got caught breaking into the development lab trying to figure out the missing pieces, and had to issue two patents for it, one for the inventor, because his backers had the foresight to spread patents all around the world
    long before they (gov)had a clue and one very lame patent for themselves.

  27. Mesh Networks by Anonymous+Cowdog · · Score: 1

    Mesh Networks == bye bye telco monopolies on the last mile

  28. I wonder if... by TheJZA · · Score: 1

    I wonder if that has to do with the article posted today at techt tv from the etherlink company in California.

    --
    The JZA
  29. Business Model by namespan · · Score: 2

    It doesn't seem to me that the business model for deploying mesh networks is rocket science. The article seems to imply that figuring out how to get the neighborhood nodes out there is a problem.

    I'd be willing to bet that for some suffeciently large (but reasonably small) radius, there exists just about everywhere a neighborhood containing at least one person willing to be an early adopter. Give this person a free serious broadband connection, paid training, and perhaps a small stipend, and have him/her keep it running. Everybody else in the neighborhood just buys wireless devices.

    If I had some cash to drop and a telecom network to use, I'd start this myself.

    --
    Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
    1. Re:Business Model by paul_cairney · · Score: 1

      As a consume.net node owner I have a particular interest in the idea of using mesh networks to provide an open wireless network based on the idea if it possible to creat bandwidth with every wireless connection, however this bandwidth is relativly limited in its use if it can only reach a fraction of the number of hosts on the Internet.

      As far as I can see todays wireless standards are not capable of supporting enough users in a mesh based network to make the network useful. Beyond a certain number of hosts almost all of the available bandwidth will be used for routing information, especialy if the nodes are not online permanantly or are moving. Even with omni directional antenna 802.11a/b has a very short range, LOS is hard to come by esspecialy since 802.11b does not agree with trees not to mention the chronic shortage of spectra since only 3 802.11b networks can operate at maximum throughput within range of each other...

      Mobile mesh is one of the leading mesh network protcols but tests by consume.net members have shown that Mobile Mesh strugles to scale past 20 nodes, not to mention the lack of windows support which is a realistic requirement if you expect every user to act as a router, esspecialy considering that 99% of the population (including several of my Comp Sci & Cyberentics course mates) consider the default state of a computer to be off.

      Any mesh routing protocol must be able to cope with re-routing packets when a node is returned to its "default state" by its user, however the problem is acheving sufficient node density to maintain coverage when peoples computers are only on say 4 hours a day. This could be achieved by producing low cost, *nix based APs wether based on COTS or a dedicated AP solution such as the Musenki or the BAWUG board which was demoed to consume.net members by Matt Peterson of BAWUG as part of his round the world trip with Terry Schmidt of NYCwireless. (cheers guys, it was a very interesting presentation).

      Both the Musenk and the BAWUG APs are very compact and could be pre-configured for mesh networking requiring only to be pluged into the users LAN however they are still relavtivly expensive. (The Musenki M-1 is expected to be $299 and the M-3 $499)

      In short Mesh networkng still has two major obstales to overcome until it can be considered for wide scale deploment..

      1) Windows software is essential to acheive sufficent node density for complete coverage 24/7.

      2) Scaleablity needs to be improved to 1000's of nodes. There is no way to write routing protols that will overcome the speed limitations of existing wireless hardware, even with QoS there will still be physical bottlenecks as there will only be a limited number of users who can connect to the NAP. Intelegent routing can cut down the number of request for routing data, from what I know of Mobile Mesh all the nodes will listen and cache routing information broadcasts which reduces the number of requests the have ot make for this information thus leaving more bandwidth for your data.

  30. check out by nvts-NUTS · · Score: 1
    www.meshnetworks.com


    For some very cool product info on mesh networks.

  31. 10 Metres =~ 33 Feet by brunes69 · · Score: 2

    Post is wrong. The article says it is 10 Metres not feet. And this is not even the theoretical maximum, it is just what they have so far.

  32. Re:P2P Wireless Networks - owned by who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    six minutes..

  33. one of the reasons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... one of the reasons I read slashdot is for posts like yours. Mod this up! simple, clear, cut through the BS writing.

  34. Self organzining wireless net up in Germany by egghat · · Score: 1

    Hi,

    your news reporter from Germany back again ;-)

    Heise had a story about a wireless self organzing net that's up for testing in the city of Ratingen, Germany.

    The main facts: 2,4 GHz like WLAN, max. 1 km distance between the antennas, 44 mbit bandwidth per node - 33 mbit for relaying with the other nodes (normally 3 * 11 mbit) and the rest for the user of the node.

    The links:

    Heise Story in German or google translated.

    Link to the technology provider DIRC (click on FAQ to get the main points).

    Bye

    egghat.

    --
    -- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel