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Idaho Companies Tout New Wireless Record
pavelvp writes "A small wireless Internet service provider in Idaho and a wireless equipment start-up claim to have set a new record for transmitting data across a wireless link this week. Microserv Computer Technologies, based in Idaho Falls, and Trango Broadband Wireless, a fixed-wireless broadband equipment maker, announced that they transmitted data over unlicensed wireless spectrum 137.2 miles." This unverified record would beat the previous record holders from the DefCon WiFi Shootout covered earlier on Slashdot.
Did the equipment include any Idaho Potato Batteries (tm)?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Uhh, I'm pretty sure voyager 1 has the record for data transmission across a wireless link.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
I was under the impression that the record reflected everything on the 802.11x band, not any wireless transmission. :/
In this case, technically NASA would win by sending wireless info from sattelites.
Maybe I'm just not RingTFA correctly.
+5, Truth
"What sets apart the 125-mile record set at the Defcon Wifi Shootout Contest is that it was subject to a strict verification and certification process administered by four independent judges."
That, and the fact that the Defcon record was set using standard 802.11b radios rather than proprietary technology, and that the proprietary technology only beat Wi-Fi by 12.2 miles.
Note that Defcon has records for unamplified long distance links.
-Adam
Okay it's unverified, but that's a good distance if it is indeed true. :) But it begs the question - "How are we going to secure a wireless area that large if there's issues with smaller coverages?" What is the benefit of an area that large if they select who has access to the network? Any ideas on how they'd regulate people just hopping on the signal?
I'm working on a good joke about your mom being
Maybe this sort of thing can compete with cable for rural broadband...DSL doesn't go to my house.
Too bad somebody beat me to the potato battery joke.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
DefCon: unamplified 802.11b; 11Mbps link; judges present & claim verified.
These guys: closed, proprietary protocol; 2.3Mbps link; no one around to verify facts.
As far as I'm concerned, the DefCon claim holds.
That's on a liscenced frequency, you insensitive clod!
They now also hold the record for the biggest and most obnoxious ad at the top of their webpage.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
At least one good thing came out of my hometown. Now if they can just make wireless recivers less than $600 dollars they may have something.
It could be argued that there is no current body with the authority to license spectrum outside of Earth.
Unless the FCC claims the whole of our solar system in it's domain.
All these long-distance radio records are being set with antennas attenuating all the signal into a (directional) narrow cylinder, rather than an (omnidirectional) sphere. What kind of performance could we get if we used a "radio laser", of coherent light in the 2.4GHz band, collimated into a long needle? Could we get transcontinental beams? Is it especially hard to make lasers in that band, and to modulate them for the WiFi signal? Is there a lot of latency, as the light bounces around in its resonant cavity before emerging coherent and pumped up to useable power? Couldn't we just modulate the "raw" laser as it was leaving the cavity?
--
make install -not war
I thought it was a well-known fact that Idaho does not exist.
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Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
AFAIK if you want (in Germany at least) to use one of the several freely available radio frequency bands,you'll have to stay in tight barriers when it comes to a)output power b) signal "precisity" (do not spread into other bands AND DO NOT INTERFERE with electronic equipment) and c) antenna gain.
so - 200dB antenna just would be illegal. There's nothing with license-free since you in fact would violate laws and void your permission to use the bands.
Maybe that's unimportant since all that record has in common with previous records in Wifi-distance are frequency.
--be smart today. emit a bit. and get bitten!.
I have to say having experienced Microservs broadband links I'm not impressed. The mileage of the connection is impressive however their service routinely sucks. Dropped coonnections, low uptime, high prices for slow speeds.They have good latency when it actually works properly though :).
Qwest DSL or CableOne has Microserv beat all hollow. Even the local Teton Wireless internet kicks their ass. But Teton wireless does have some pretty impressive speeds for a long range wireless link (I've seen it get as high as 5Mbps down and 2Mbps up).
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it, why can't you?"
This whole business of 'records' for wireless transmissions is just so silly, a game of 'mine is bigger than yours'. Until these folks are actually communicating with stuff that's farther from this planet than geostationary orbit, then, there's already plenty of folks communicating without wires, over distances far greater than 137 miles, as part of normal everyday operations, so common in fact, nobody thinks twice about it. For one off custom setups, well, there's a couple of little robots traversing around mars that do it daily. For highly specialized 'record breaking' stuff, look out to cassini and beyond.
"The equipment used was not based on standard 802.11 wireless technology, but instead was based on proprietary radio technology from Trango."
This would seem to be irrelevant to the Defcon record which was unamplified standard 802.11.
It's comparing apples and oranges, isn't it?
I suppose you can say it's a new "wireless" record, but then what about the Navy's ULF submarine communication methods? Aren't they "wireless"? And they go a lot further than 100 miles.
This seems like an advertising stunt to me.
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A good article about
some weird, gang-style rivalry coming from a falling out between the founders might be quite slashdotworthy. Got one?
Mod parent DOWN! Let's not give George W. Bush any ideas!!!!