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7Gbps Wi-Fi Networking Kit Could Launch In 2010
Mark.JUK writes "Wireless Local Area Networking (WLAN 802.11) adapters capable of speeds 'up to' 7Gigabits per second could be in stores by the end of this year. The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig), which seeks to advance the worldwide adoption and use of 60GHz wireless networking technology, has published a unified specification for its approach and opened an Adopter Program. The move means that WiGig members can now begin developing a Wi-Fi kit that uses the unlicensed 60GHz spectrum."
At 60 GHz? No. It's hard enough getting that to propagate through air, let alone walls. This is for short-range communication exclusively.
"Municipal WiFi" will never happen on a large scale and in the long run, for this reason: If you want signals to propagate, you need to stick to low enough frequencies, and that means there just isn't enough bandwidth to cover a large number of people at the same time. It just barely works now, and bandwidth demand will only grow. Wires are here to stay: You'll still need to wire every house, every apartment, and have local transceivers if you want a wireless connection. There just isn't enough bandwidth in the open air.
Because wired has less problems. Wireless is nice in that, well, it doesn't require wires. So no cables to run. Less hassle in terms of physical effort, and you can move around while using it but that's where the advantages end. Wired has some big advantages:
1) Security. With wireless, there is always the issue of other people listening to your signal. Unless you live in a farady cage, you can't control where that signal goes. That means you have to deal with shit like encrypting the entire signal. That takes additional configuration to make work, and additional hardware to accomplish at high speeds. While AES isn't particularly intensive, try doing it at a gigabit. It'll hit a modern CPU hard and no way some cheap embedded device pulls it off without ASICs to help.
2) Contention. With a wireless system, you are all using the same bandwidth. This means it doesn't scale well with more connections. The more computers you have on it, the lower your total throughput. Not a problem with wired connections, each computer gets dedicated bandwidth to the switch. So I can transfer to you at full bandwidth while two other people also transfer at full bandwidth and there's no contention.
3) Range. Even under pretty good conditions, wireless doesn't match up to the distance you can get from a normal Cat-6 run (100 meters). Of course you also have wired technology for longer runs (like fiber), or you can simply have a switch repeat the signal.
4) Simplicity. While it is more work to lay the wires, once done you have less effort. A system just plugs in and all necessary information can be provided to it, no config necessary. With wireless, configuration must be done on the client machine, at least if any encryption is to be involved.
5) Reliability. Wireless just has problems. Be it interference from other devices on the same band, dead zones, weather, whatever, you can lose wireless signal because of too low a SNR. Not the case with a wired connection. They tend to always work, unless the cable breaks and that is quite rare.
6) Speed. Whatever you can do with wireless, you can probalby do better with wired. Just tends to be the case. This is particularly true if you include fiber in the wired category, but even if not. Right now N is as good as it gets wireless which gets maybe 100mbps of throughput max in terms of actual data (300mbps data rate, but there's tons of overhead). 1gpbs wired is common, 10gbps is available over regular twisted pair. Faster is being developed for normal twisted pair, and faster is already available for fiber or something like CX4.
Nothing wrong with wireless, but it is an addition to wired, not a replacement. I have a WAP so that I can use my laptop everywhere in my house. However my desktop, my Blu-ray, etc are all hard wired. I don't see that changing.
For most practical purposes, 60GHz signals don't penetrate anything. They just bounce around like light.
This stuff might be good for fixed point-to-point links, but that's about it.
I've worked a bit with existing 60GHz products, and while they're generally faster than greased shit, the alignment of them is typically very critical and, sometimes, even seasonal. This isn't the sort of product that would be useful for municipal wifi, except perhaps as a backhaul between 802.11 radios.
Of course, like any new product where there's money to be made, the marketers will claim that it slices, it dices, and it makes Julienne fries. Caveat emptor, etc. (But wait! There's more! If you act now, the sky will always be blue, you'll always be young, and you'll ejaculate rainbows.)
Meh.
Kid-proof tablet..