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World's Longest Wi-Fi Connection
axonis writes "The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) announced today that they have transmitted information via a broadband wireless link over a distance of 310km. They believe that this is the longest distance achieved using wireless connectivity. Alvarion (BreezeCom) is also the original consultant to Ericsson for BlueTooth technology"
kinda knocks the pants off this 1 km wireless connection
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Procter and Gamble has announced a giant pringles can intended for a super bowl promotion has been stolen.
Kilobytes per second?
'Broadband' implies a certain connection speed(?)
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
...but you have to keep in mind that Bluetooth and WiFi were developed for entirely different purposes; Bluetooth was never intended as a wireless computer networking method, just as cable replacement (as in your gfx card to your monitor, your mainboard to your printer, your scanner to your printer).
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Whoa! An improvement of 31000% in 7 hours and 28 minutes. ;)
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Actually, in Sweden, you're limited to 100 milliwatts on the 2.4GHz band, unless you have a special permit.
Is it me, or is that just a TAD low? I mean, it seems perfectly logical to me that increasing signal power decreases signal loss and would therefore increase throughput. So why are they using something so weak, particularly over such a long distance?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
The link was made between a stratospheric balloon that was launched from Esrange near the town of Kiruna in northern Sweden and a base station located near Esrange.
Onboard the balloon was an antenna supplied by Alvarion, the world's most successful provider of broadband wireless products. The antenna was connected to a high-power amplifier with 6 watts power output, a camera and a server. Data, such as environmental conditions and weather patterns, was collected and the information was sent back to Esrange via an Alvarion base station which measured 2.4 meters with 6 watt power output and automatic tracking of the antenna using GPS technology.
Information received at the base station was then sent back to Esrange via the internal network. The information between the balloon and the base station was transmitted over the 2.4GHz spectrum (2480 Mhz which the SSC is allowed to use with higher ERP) with a stable signal strength of -68 dBm.
The round trip ping response at 300Km was 300-500 mSec.
The weather balloon reached a maxium height of 29.7 km and drifted steadily. It finally touched down east of Sodankylä in the northern part of Finland, having travelled approximately 315 Km.
Lars-Olov Jonsson, System engineer RF and microwave, at SSC Esrange commented: "This is an amazing technical achievement, the difficulty of which should not be underestimated. Alvarion has developed extremely robust equipment capable of operating in a very harsh environment. Its technology has helped us save money, time and energy."
Zvi Slonimsky, CEO of Alvarion, said: "Time and time again, wireless is proving to be a genuine option in the broadband arena for enterprises, incumbent and alternative operators looking for alternatives to fibre and satellite to be continued."
About the Swedish Space Corporation
The Swedish Space Corporation is a state-owned, commercial company with about 300 employees at its locations in Solna (near Stockholm) and Kiruna. SSC operates the Esrange facility outside Kiruna for rocket and balloon launches for scientists from the whole world. SSC also operates one of the world's busiest satellite ground stations at Esrange, supporting a growing number of satellites. In Solna, SSC develops state-of-the-art satellites, space vehicle subsystems, payloads for rockets as well as airborne systems for maritime surveillance. These products are sold on the international market. Swedish Space Corporation owns fifty percent of Nordic Satellite AB, which distributes television and offers other telecommunication services on its geostationary Sirius satellites.
About Alvarion
Alvarion is a premier provider of solutions based on Point-to-Multipoint (PMP) Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) used by telecom carriers, service providers, and enterprises worldwide. Alvarion systems provide Internet access and voice and data services in the last mile, cellular network feeding, building-to-building and wireless local area network (LAN) connectivity.
Alvarion offers the broadest range of BWA solutions by market segment and frequency band, designed to address all carriers' and service providers' business models. With its combined market experience, strong customer base, diversified distribution channels and field-proven deployments, Alvarion is a leading BWA pure play provider for every end user profile, from residential subscribers to business customers.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, general business conditions in the industry, changes in demand for products, the timing and cancellation of orders and other risks detailed from time to time in Alvarion's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Alvarion's Form F-1.
There's a slight difference in using VLF or ELF signals to communicate with a purpose built multi-million dollar equipment, using huge, ultra-sensitive directional antennas, and communicating via the 2.4GHz band, using more or less standard equipment that's available at most computer stores.
Today's assignment, find out the differences in transmitting a 15Hz ELF signal through, let's say, 100km of air (sea level pressure), as opposed to transmitting a 2.4GHz signal through the same medium. Be prepared to present your findings to the class.
So basically what youre saying theyre developed this great long range connection that has no purpose for civilians.
Now there is just going to be stupid shit like LAN parties out in the middle of the desert.
Or maybe people think that's cool
Actually Ham radio blew away this lame 310Km distance in the 144mhz band years ago... 384,400KM times 2 (that's the distance to that funny big rock in the sky and back) sending packet data at 300 bps.
But this is not about just transmitting data this is using OFF THE SHELF 802.11 equipment and getting it to work that insane distance.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Consider the watts used to communicate with some of the first orbiting capsules and moon modules...try 15 watts.
It's the singer, not the song...or in this case, the antenna efficiency.
How many millions of kilometers away are the Voyager probes right now?
It ain't broadband, but data has been sent over their wireless connection.
"The round trip ping response at 300Km was 300-500 mSec."
With this kind of lag you can't play CounterStrike.
This is not a sig.
This isn't true. The limit is based on your Effective Isotropic Radiated Power, or EIRP. This is formulated by the combination of your output amplifier and your antenna. To get your EIRP, simply add the output power of your amplifier, expressed in dBm (dB referred to 1 milliwatt), to the gain of your antenna, expressed in dB.
So, if you have a transmitter with an output power of +14dBm, and an antenna with a gain of 18dB, then you have an EIRP of 14+18 = 32dBm, which is almost 2 watts.
If you have a transmitter with an output power of 14dBm, an amplifier with a gain of +10dB, and an antenna with a gain of +15dB, then you end up with an EIRP of 14+10+15 = 39dBm. So, in extremely simplified terms, you simply add up all the dB's to get your EIRP.
To convert your EIRP into a "wattage" number, you divide your dBm by 10, and then raise 10 to that number. So, if you have 36dBm, you would do 10**3.6, which is 3.981 Watts.
Some useful things to remember is that adding 10dB is the same as multiplying the output power by a factor of 10. Adding 3dB is the same as doubling your output power. Likewise, subtracting 3dB is halving and subtracting 10dB is decimating.
There are two limits, one for point to multipoint and the other for point to point links. For the former, you're allowed up to 36dBm EIRP, which is to say, 36dB over 1 milliwatt, which is 4 Watts EIRP. For the latter, you're allowed 48dBm, which is just a tiny bit over 50 Watts (50.118).
I wonder what the gain is on a Deep Space Network antenna...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
This is such a misnomer. It's a bog standard long range data link. 'Wi-fi' has generally become the term to describe 802.11 based networking, and not other types of radio data links Like packet radio working through moonbounce (admittedly, not broadband). The day I need a 2.4m dish connected to my laptop for 'wi-fi' is the day hell freezes over.
Slashdot talking bollocks?? Never!!!
I forgive you, my child. =)
On the other hand, this is just a few megabits! My server can transmit data at gigabit speeds! What? Different technologies? Different media? Different circumstances? What do you mean? =)
PS: A radio station is HOW many watts? Your FM Radio is sending HOW much data back?
Granted that this is a pretty cool demonstration of the ability to beam 2.4GHz over a l-o-o-o-ng distance while maintaining adequate signal to noise. But a constantly drifting balloon? Seems like tracking this with the ground antenna, which is probably highly directional, would be a total pain. But maybe...
and he can eat for a day. Give a man a fishing rod and they can eat for life....or something like that.
So imagine having a wireless link to a hospital that is 300 miles away. The local semi trained nurse could hook up to the hospital (or another one in another country) with a camera and get expert advice on how to treat a patient without the need to fly 300 miles to the hospital. The money saved on the flight could then be used to supply yet another village with better medical supplies and training.
Giving local people access to resources about building wells and wind turbines and there maintance could empower the people to help themselves instead of been given handouts. Information on better faming techniques...The list goes on.
By itself Internet access will not help but combined with an other things it becomes another tool to help.
[Please type your sig here.]
Some company with "Volvo" in its name has recently admitted its responsibility in the failure of the first launch of the new Ariane 5 rocket.
It's super useful! If you need to wirelessly transmit pr0n to a balloon 29km high.
If you not going to use a standard you not even close to the longest wireless link. Anyone remember contacting voyager a couple months back. Correct me if I am wrong but they are not running a wire all the way out there are they?
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Wi-Fi is specifically a certified version of 802.11a or 802.11b or both. Not a generic term. It's confusing when used generically.
What's being discussed here is spread-spectrum frequency hopping or direct sequence -- probably FHSS not DSSS. It should be called by its right name as this is Slashdot, after all!
With 6 watts of output power, you could send 802.11b quite far as well using off-the-shelf equipment. This achievement is only remarkable because of the components involved (balloons, etc.), not because of the distance.
Because of the curvature of the earth, you have maximum distances without building huge towers that are only in the tens of miles, even with curving of the 2.4 GHz waves around the globe. The small wavelength means you don't get an enormous bending effect.
If you beam from the earth straight up, you have longer possible distances.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
See, here's where the metric system comes in handy! In Europe, this thing went 310 kilometers!!! In America, it would only have gone 192.634 miles.
Maybe this metric thing isn't so bad...
I could have sworn THIS was the longest data transmission we'd ever seen.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
First a correction:
:)
This was not a weather balloon, but a stratospheric scientific balloon: these can carry payloads up to 8000lbs (on the extreme upper limit) and can keep them up for weeks (the current record is 31 days)
Now my question: what was the link they were using? What was the bit rate? What what was the bit loss rate? Were they shipping TCP/IP, or was it special purpose format. If the former, I'm intriged - how nice it would be to log into one's balloon borne stratospheric telescope and fix those lingering bugs (bugs? what bugs? never...)! If the latter... well, at this very moment I am monitoring data from our stratospheric balloon instrument which is currently at -80.5 lat, and -78.2 lon and an altitude of 31.2km (ie, over the antarctic plateau). We're only getting a 6kbit link (through the TDRSS sattelite) now that we are out of line of sight, but -80.5 lat, -78.2 lon is a *long* way from here in Toronto
I believe Voyager transmitted data wirelessly from several million kilometers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but last I checked several million kilometers is larger than 310 kilometers.
Wireless networking might just be a multiple violation of the law in Egypt.Details here and here.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Uhm, hate to rain on your parade, but you're off by three orders of magnitude.
10**3.6 is 3 THOUSAND 981.
Which leads me to belive that if you have a 36dBm radiated power, you can either cook things with your laptop at a distance of 10m, or your math stinks.
paintball
Of course I'm still waiting for the reply packets...
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