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Possible Big Boost in WiFi Range
goger writes "An article in the New York Times this morning (insert obligatory note about free registration here, and don't forget the yada's) talks about a startup company in CA that says it will announce WiFi antenna technology today that can give a 2000 ft. range indoors (and up to 4 mi. outdoors). This would be awesome if they really deliver, of course (and if it doesn't require me to set up something the size of a rooftop TV antenna next to my laptop in the coffee shop...)."
of doing this is to make cards with a higher transmit power - the highest power that I've seen on the market in the usa is 200mw (100mw is the limit in the eu). I think the fcc will allow cards upto a watt (1000mw) maybe more.
No I didn't read the article. There is no way I'm going to register.
What do they think? These things have to accept all interference, and make none themselves. Will this 'new' product do that?
Midcoast Internet in Maine has an active 9 mile link. It uses 802.11 (FHSS) technology, so how is all this new? They've even tested 18 and 32 miles links. link here
Saying that this is all nifty keen and something new is a bit of a fib, as I'm sure there's plenty of other providers doing this as well. Heck, even Robert X. Cringeley has some long link (or had one) through to someone elses house.
4 miles is hardly a huge jump, even legally done by FCC guidelines (thus the 'you can have more power on point to point links' rules of the FCC)
It's all in the antennae, that's right, but been there, done that.
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I saw a company that had a product that did this at CTIA, though I don't remember the company name right off. They had an antenna that looked like an oversized hockeypuck with a cable coming out of it. From what I gathered it is a phase array setup, and they use a processor in the antenna itself to seek out and lock onto the strongest signals. All this processing is done in the antenna itself, so the enduser just sees it as a high gain antenna that points itself. Ingenious if you ask me =)
The article mentions phased array antennas. You can do some really wonderful things with phased arrays, so I don't doubt their claim. The problem is that they are usually quite expensive, take up a lot of space, AND usually require considerable processing (note that they do mention the antenna must be placed in "the corner of a large office"). It remains to be seen how these guys plan to work around those obstacles.
Another thing ofcourse is the question as to whether the range on the antennas is programmable. It's quite natural for a business organization not to want someone a few blocks away to be able to take a crack at network security
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WiFi antenna technology today that can give a 2000 ft. range indoors...
I doubt this applies to a building filled with electric interference, like a telco switch centre
or a large server centre. When I was working for Nortel Networks, we had problems
using wireless scanners inside the labs. The only solution was to put up more antennas.
You can bias towards distance and not narrow the beam width. Think of how FM broadcasters get increased erp and still have a circular coverage area. They design the antenna to move the rf from the non-useful areas and add it to the useful areas. Think of compressing a sphere into a donut.
By creative use of phasing and stacking of elements you can achieve almost any pattern you desire.
I'm not sure whether or not increased WiFi ranges are a good thing. This could mean that companies (who are what's being targetted according to the article) will be able to compete for bandwidth over a greater range than ordinary individuals.
Look what happened with Starbucks infringing on a WiFi co-op in Portland. Other companies that wan't to share their signal over a large building and don't particularly care about interfering with the signal outside of that building are sure to implement this technology.
There seems to be a common belief that folks become ill from radiated electrical power. However, I've never seen any published studies that show this. I seem to recall one study that showed a slight increase in childhood leukemia in folks that live under powerlines, but that this was later disproven in a larger study.
I'm sure that there's a problem if you pump in enough energy to heat tissue, but short of that, is there any evidence at all that electromagnetic fields impact health? Or is this an unproven or disproven hypothesis?
To stay within FCC regulations, there are rules about the effective radiated power from an antenna on this stuff. IT's not safe to say that you can just throw any antenna you like on it, and it's okay; if you exceed certain gain levels, you are outside the rules. This differs from country to country of course; I know that you can get more effective power at distance out of 2.4Ghz ISM in the US than you can in canada, for instance.