[1st-mile-nm] Intel's Long-Distance Wi-Fi

[Richard Lowenberg]

In response to Tom's posting, I've been hoping for the past couple of days that
no one would post to the 1st-Mile list about the Intel long distance wifi
transmission announcement.   It is less than meets the eye.   Following is an
informative posting from another list, about this.   Be careful of tech-hype.
rl

----- Forwarded message from sebastian at less.dk -----
    Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:55:43 +0200
    From: sebastian buettrich <sebastian at less.dk>

Dear all,
i am normally an interested but quiet reader on this list,
but this time around i would like to comment, since i am specializing in
community wireless networking

On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 05:35 -0400, Ian Thomson wrote:
> Hi All,
> This is a very confusing press release. Many WIFI practitioners are today
getting distances of 30 to 60 kms with parabolic antenna. What is so special
about the Intel development?
> If it is just that is drops requests to resend packets, then this is doubtful.
Any radio engineer will tell you that radio is bad for dropping packets and
resending them is necessary to recover the full data.

It is absolutely correct -

wireless practicioners have been doing up to 300+ km already and the
current world record is approx 380 km

http://www.eslared.org.ve/articulos/Long%20Distance%20WiFi%20Trial.pdf

Distances up to 100 km have never been *that* great challenge and can be
done and are frequently done by wireless practicioners - and a lot
cheaper than USD 1000 - from around USD 200-300 in wireless gear.

For the tech minded, some detail:

Going above 100 km, the shortcomings of the MAC 802.11 layer have been
the challenge - in simple words, the "hello" and "acknowledge" timeouts
between the wireless nodes.
This is what the Intel product addresses, not by dropping the ACL
altogether, but by using TDMA - if you are interested in more techie
details

The statements made in the article,

""If you take standard Wi-Fi and focus it," Galinovsky says, "you can't
get past a few kilometers.""

and in the Intel video can only be called misleading and simply wrong.
So, it s more of a PR cloud, misleading people, than "a huge step
forward".

hope this helps,
best to all,

sebastian

------------------------------------
dr. sebastian buettrich
sebastian at wire.less.dk

a free book on wireless networking in the developing world - 2nd edition out
now!

http://www.wndw.net
http://wire.less.dk
http://thewirelessroadshow.org
------------------------------------

Richard Lowenberg
1st-Mile Institute
P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110;   505-603-5200 cell
rl at 1st-mile.com  www.1st-mile.com


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