Intel Pushes 802.16a Wireless MAN Standard

An anonymous reader writes "The 802.16a standard, approved in January of this year, is a wireless metropolitan area network technology that will connect 802.11 hot spots to the Internet and provide a wireless extension to cable and DSL for last mile broadband access. It provides up to 50-kilometers of range and allows users to get broadband connectivity without needing a direct line of sight with the base station. The wireless broadband technology also provides shared data rates up to 70-Mbit/s."

Comments

Re:Security!!!

[ackthpt]

Hey I never got much of a chance to read up on this but with the advertised range what is the security like? Dont tell me its like that pushover excuse for protection known as WEP on 802.11b. My big concern is that with all this range it will be hard to pinpoint where the guy with a card and a laptop is tryign [sic] to get your stuff. Or steal connection from an ISP? Anyone got any thoughts or know the security specifics?

Right on the heels of this article, I'm more worried about War Cooking... gangs of nerdish thugs driving around cities, looking for open access to my microwave.

07:10 AM Cook for 10 minutes
07:20 AM Done
07:22 AM Cook for 15 minutes
07:37 AM Done
07:48 AM Cook for 5 minutes
07:53 AM Done
08:04 AM Cook for 3 minutes
08:07 AM Done
08:14 AM Cook for 25 minutes
Smoke alarm goes off, firemen arrive, haul smoking carcass of microwave out into street.

Re:Some acronyms for ya

[MarkGriz]

"WOMAN = Wide Open Metropolitan Area Network, which is what most of those 802.11 networks will be..."

Presumably these will be equipped with an 802.11g-spot?

Re:Some acronyms for ya

[swb]

Presumably these will be equipped with an 802.11g-spot?

Yes, except you won't know where to find it, and the equipment will always fake a link light, so even if you think you've found it, you can't be sure.