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Use Multiple Channels for Faster Wireless Networking
icypyr0 writes "The Register reports: 'Current dual-mode 802.11 'a' and 'b' access points use only one of Wi-Fi's 11 RF channels at a time, with users taking turns. The Engim chipset can 'see' all 11 at once, and can use the three non-overlapping ones (1, 6 and 11) in parallel, increasing total throughput and enabling features to be incorporated in silicon that are usually implemented, at extra cost and performance degradation, in software.'"
it's about 70 miles.
....Excuse me, but
They're basically getting all of their performance gains simply by violating the part of the WiFi standard that says you should only use one channel at a time, and leave 2/3 of the bandwidth space for other possible applications. Not to revolutionary a concept... just one that causes problems only for people other than the buyers of their systems.
It's known that mixing 802.11b and 802.11g on the same network causes slowdowns... their effective solution is to put the 802.11b devices on a different channel and therefore a different network than the 802.11g devices and join the two networks at their access point.
I don't know a great deal about wireless networking, so maybe I'm totally off base, but is it possible in certain situations for this to cause interference between different RF channel users? Or if a new user came onto a channel being multiplexed?
As if setting up a wireless network in an apartment wasn't a big enough pain in the ass already, now I've got to worry about the yokel next door hogging all the available channels?
This is going to casue more problems in resedential areas than it will solve.