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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"
Procter and Gamble has announced a giant pringles can intended for a super bowl promotion has been stolen.
Whoa! An improvement of 31000% in 7 hours and 28 minutes. ;)
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
I can never understand this stuff. You want to give "poor developing countries" internet access? Don't you think we should spend more time actually developing these places before we start laying in the luxuries? (Remember, the Internet is not some god given right, it's a Luxury.)
Yeah, let's build a community center in BFE for a group of people who don't have running water or electricity in their homes and the nearest hospitol is a 300M charter plane trip away.
Yeah yeah, mod me down. Before you do, realize that they're places in northern Alaska that fit this description nicely - and they have a nicer net connection than a lot of people I know.
Actually, in Sweden, you're limited to 100 milliwatts on the 2.4GHz band, unless you have a special permit.
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.
Not to completely rag on you man, but people in developing countries would have to learn how to read before the internet would be much use to them.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
More than that, this does away with the need of intermediate hardware for long distances.
A big boon for use in desolate and (naturally)unfriendly environs.
Very cool indeed. That is infact something that would be immensely useful in places like this for these people.
The moment you transmit high watts wirelessly it becomes potentially dangerous. I don't know on what frequencies the above link operates,but if it is 1-2GHz then it could probably be used as a (slow/small/low power) microwave oven if you would push the watts to say 500W or above. The FCC will prohibit you from transmitting signals with energy more than a few watts. For a comparison, the radio transmitter on the Pathfinder mars probe was 4 watts. amazing eh?
# ssh -l neo the_matrix; killall -9 agent_smith
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.
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.
Graelin writes:
I can never understand this stuff. You want to give "poor developing countries" internet access? Don't you think we should spend more time actually developing these places before we start laying in the luxuries? (Remember, the Internet is not some god given right, it's a Luxury.)
In the same way that an article of clothing can either be considered a luxury (eg; furs coats) or a necessity (eg; longjohns in Fairbanks), internet access can be viewed as either a luxury (eg; a good game of UT2003) or a necessity (access to the largest single repository of mankind's knowledge).
Aside from the jokes that will stem from that last bombastic statement, just because we use it for primarily entertainment purposes does not mean that's all there is to be had. Internet access means not only the ability to communicate and share ideas (linux comes to mind) but also makes political oppression much, much harder to pull off. If you're a wannabe dictator, you want your citizenry stupid, quiet and weaponless.
My
Limekiller
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).
andbutso writes:
"Now there is just going to be stupid shit like LAN parties out in the middle of the desert."
Burning Man II, Gibbing Boogaloo
I deserve whatever moderation I get for that.
My
Limekiller
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!!!
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.
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