
What's better than Wi-Fi? Super Wi-Fi - pchristensen
http://www.slate.com/id/2269268/pagenum/all/
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dgreensp
Another generic, thin-on-facts hype article about the "whitespace". I'm
disappointed in Slate. With all the vacuous pieces around, it's difficult to
even find out which frequencies are being made available.

Here's an article from 2007 with some facts:

<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2007/04/white-space.ars>

Basically new mobile devices will be allowed if they can actively dodge TV
channels, in the 50-700 MHz range, and use the spaces in between.

Truly the only advantage of these lower-than-wifi frequencies, as far as I can
tell, is less signal attenuation (over distances and through walls). That
means more potential for crowding, too. Plus I assume you need a longer
antenna for the longer wavelength. I haven't been able to find any good info
about potential data rates.

In North America, 900-930 MHz is already unlicensed and used for some cordless
phones and wireless transmitters. Remember that big antenna sticking out of
your first cordless phone? (Before the fancier 2.4 GHz ones that interfered
with your home wifi.)

Anyway, new unlicensed bands is exciting, even if no single frequency is
unused everywhere in the country, but I just don't get the "super wifi" /
"wifi on drugs/steroids" angle without more facts.

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lincolnq
I'm excited for the possibility that wifi will be able to serve a much larger
area, perhaps 100-1000 times the area of current wifi points. I've been trying
to figure out how to make micro-ISP businesses super convenient (just buy a
router, set it up, and get paid) -- this might just be what that idea needs to
get started. Maybe we can simultaneously disrupt the major cellphone providers
and the major ISPs... wifi everywhere!

~~~
bobds
A few years ago I was in Athens and some tech guys introduced me to the idea
of wireless community networks. I was amazed at what a few people had achieved
with just directional antennas and a few ADSL lines, back when broadband was
almost non-existant in Greece. They called it the Athens Wireless Metropolitan
Network:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_Ne...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_Network)

Today they have 1120 backbone nodes, 2900 client nodes and another 9000+
people that have expressed interest in joining the network.

Apparently this is happening all over the world. Wikipedia has an extensive
list:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_netw...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region)

We need this super wifi thing in the hands of those people.

