Slashdot Mirror
Cisco Unveils Amazing New Wireless Plans
StDave writes "Yesterday Cisco announced a very cool technology. It is a 44Mb wireless technology that doesn't require line of sight and has a range of 30 miles. Take your ADSL line on the road with you. " Wow - they've found a way to use the "ghosting" caused by obstructions to tv and cell signals. Base units will cost around 150,000$ and the transceivers will be under 500$, with start of marketing sometime around June.
If shared, then over a radios of 30 miles it's not necessarily a whole lot -- especially in the city.
If per station... err... Please mommy?
-- Slashdot sucks.
While not terribly difficult in theory, that it works over such distances is an impressive feat of engineering. However, I would like to see how it works in the real world. If it compensates for interference by lots of resending, dropping bandwidth, that's fine, but if it cuts out, that's a problem.
While I don't doubt the article, I want to see it in production before I praise them too much.
One thing that I've always wondered, why do we see so few high bandwidth wireless technology. I mean, one should be able to just use more frequencies. I guess that there is a real shortage of available frequencies. I wonder how much of that is technical hurdles and how much is beaurocratic messes between the DOD, FCC, etc., fighting over it.
Well, as IP carries more and more information, I wonder if we'll be able to reclaim all the bandwidth from audio/video broadcasts as the world moves digital. HDTV promises more (over the airwaves) channels because the signal is smaller... that seems a little silly. People that want more channels currently have Cable and DSS options, and Telephone will do so too. I think that society has more uses for the airwaves than broadcasting more garbage. As long as people get reasonable channels for their kids, news, and evening entertainment, I think that society would be better served by allowing new technologies to claim the bandwidth... but that's just me.
On the other hand, more radio stations with lower barriers to entry (licenses trump the real expenses) so that there are real alternative stations instead of the same drivel on all of them.
Alex