World Radiocommunications Group OKs New WLAN Spectrum

BenFranske writes "The World Radiocommunications Conference will allow a portion of spectrum in the 5GHz band to be used for WLANs, a decision hailed as a 'defining moment' for the WLAN industry. Although this doesn't impact the US much as this spectrum is already being used for wireless networking here, this will help standardize the frequencies worldwide."

Comments

5Ghz.. it is the future!

[bethane]

The 5gig band is much better for wireless communication than the cluttered 2.4Ghz band. Some of the main advantages of 5GHz:

Due to the nature of 5GHz waves it is very resilliant to interference.

Aroung 4/5 time the data carrying capacity of 2.4GHz band.

19 non-overlapping channels compared to the 3 non overlapping channels for 2.4GIG

A true multimedia experience is possible with the ability to stream video and hi-fi audio.
I'd love to see 5GHz transmitter be allowed greater power so we could reach comparable distances to that of 2.4GHz.

Re:And Our Health?

[hamsterboy]

Actually, 5GHz won't affect humans nearly as much as 2.4GHz; a microwave oven operates at around 2.4GHz, where the 5GHz band does nothing useful/harmful on a macro scale.

airwave economics

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Its a shame that governments control the airwaves, but unfortunately in order for them to be of any use they sorta haveto.They regulate the airwaves as to reduce interferance that would otherwise jam just about every band. This way large corperate radio stations won't interfere with someone's remotely powered pacemaker. And SGI can't fry my pc's wifi card if I put my labtop next to their latest supercomputer. Its sort of a tragedy of the commons situation. The solution is to get rid of the commons by assigning ownership to them.