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BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi
ydeepakjois writes "BusinessWeek is running a series of articles on the potential of wireless high-speed access, the Wi-Fi industry and the challenges faced by it. There is also an interesting bit about a business model for wireless carriers."
Business week seem to have got a really good tech section. Check out some of the articles in the "recent tech features" sidebar on the left.
I think you mean Seattle Wireless (.net). seattlewireless.org doesn't resolve for me.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I was under the impression that 802.11b's range was anywhere from 100-5000ft depending on the antenea. It doesn't sound like you'll be bouncing the signal over any hills or mountains without several relay points...
Anyways for what it's worth, a LOT of conferences nowadays set up wireless access and it is very popular. Just walk around at lunchtime and you'll see many people checking email (or just surfing the web or whatever). As for videoconferencing, that's not even popular over wired connections.
'ta
The Economist has a set of related articles in this week's edition.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
The only real stop gap solution at this point is to have a VPN server on the other side of the wireless connection. That way, your packets can be sniffed all day and would be crackers have to deal with breaking VPN crypto.
I suspect that in the end, that will be the way to go regardless of new advancements in WEP that may or may not come about.
The bottom line is that somewhere, the day will have to be encrypted in some way because it is open in the air for anyone to grab. If you put the burden of the horsepower required to encrypt/decrypt on your WAP, then your ability to serve large numbers of clients diminishes.
In other words, leave the WAP duties up to the WAP and leave the encryption duties up to a VPN server. No changes to current technologies required.
Operating positive means that your operating expenses are less than your operating income. Free-cash-flow positive means that you basically always have a positive cash-flow situation -- you always have cash on-hand. Net-income-profitable means that after taxes, overhead, and direct expenses, yada yada, you have a positive net income... Err...IOW you made money after you paid everything out, including taxes.
My journal has hot
The limitations causing hills to be a problem are built into the 2.4 ghz frequency. Physics is to blame and cannot be changed. Signals such as FM radio have a much better ability to penetrate uneven terrain.
The way to get around the problem of obstruction of signal, multiple repeater sites are necessary. There is a cost associated that makes it hard to justify if there isn't significant population density to cover an area.
As far as upping speed to 54 mbps in the 2.4 ghz range, 802.11g will make that a reality. It is already here with 802.11a. 802.11a technology is a little more expensive currently though.
Still, it doesn't matter because the further away from a WAP you are, the lower your data throughput will be. If your WAP is getting interference from another WAP, your maximum data throughput will be much lower than 54mbps anyway.
Do not look for current wireless technologies to replace wired ones with equivalent functionality anytime soon. The best they can do is fill in broadband gaps by serving up a 128/256/512/1024K connections to those willing to pay for it.
'ta
WiFi stands for "Wireless Fidelity"
= 2
More info + propaganda available at:
See http://www.weca.net/OpenSection/why_Wi-Fi.asp?TID
Rushfan