Wi-Fi World Record

supersam writes "Interline Wireless Technology, a Polish company has reportedly set a world record in stretching the range of a Wi-Fi network for an amazing 110 Kms at 2.4 GHz. They achieved this using an antenna developed by them and an INTEL Pro/Wireless 2011 Access Point."

Err... it is a cheat

[arivanov]

Err... My polish is crap, but unless I am mistaken they seem to have used a 500mW aplifier and a 27dbM antenna to boot.

What's next? Sticking it in the middle of Aresibo and claiming half a light year range?

Geek factor 9.3 useful factor 1

[obi1one]

(error 1337 destination page /.ed) Is increasing the range of current wireless networking equipment really what is needed. I know i personally am turned off from wireless not because of the lack of range, but the lack of speed. There is certainly some cool factor being able to get that masssive a distance, but I dont see this as making wireless more desirable to anyone.

If we continue to see developments such as this...

[SwansonMarpalum]

It will only mean that last mile solutions will become more plausible for those who don't live within a couple miles of their CO. This is a Good Thing, as having Dial-Up and Satellite as your only options is pretty unbearable.

Partial translation..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a full translation.. just some of the more pertinent bits..

"Nalez.y podkres'lic', z.e realizowane ?a;cze by?o typowo naziemne (w odroz.nieniu od ?a;cza zrealizowanego pod koniec 2002 roku z balonu stratosferycznego w Szwecji przez firmy Alvarion i Swedish Space Corporation)
Co rownie waz.ne, wszystkie elementy uz.yte w eksperymencie firmy INTERLINE sa; niemodyfikowanymi urza;dzeniami/osprze;tem doste;pnymi na rynku(parabola 1.1 metra i wzmacniacz 500 mW) - a w Szwecji uz.yto anteny parabolicznej o s'rednicy 2.4 metra i wzmacniacza 6000mW.
Na potrzeby eksperymentu wyznaczono dwie skrajne lokalizacje: Wroc?aw i Hala pod S'niez.ka; - najwyz.sza; gora; Karkonoszy - na po?udniowy wschod od Jeleniej Gory.
Odleg?os'c' w linii prostej: oko?o 110 km."
==>
"It should be noted that this connection was ground based (in comparison to the record achieved at the end of 2002 by a Swedish company which used a hot air balloon)
What's also important is the fact that all the equipment used here is unmodified and readily available off the shelf (a 1.1m parabolic dish and a 500mW amp), unlike the Swedes who used a 2.4m parabolic dish and a 6000mW amplified.
For the pruposes of this experiment we used two locations, Wrcolaw and Hala pod Sniezka - the highest mountain in the Karkonoszy - south-east of Jelieni Gora.
Distance in a straight line - about 110km"

"Lokalizacje
Jednym z kluczowych etapow eksperymentu by? wybor lokalizacji dla stacji tworza;cych planowane po?a;czenie punkt-punkt. Pierwsza z nich, to 10 pie;trowy wiez.owiec na jednym z wroc?awskich osiedli. Druga lokalizacja, kluczowa dla ca?ego eksperymentu to hala pod S'niez.ka;, obok schroniska Dom S'la;ski na wysokos'ci 1400 m.n.p.m."
==>
"Location
One of the key decisions to be made was the location of the end stations in this point-to-point link. One station was the tenth floor of a Wroclaw block of flats. The second station was the hall under the Sniezka.. near the Dom Slaski shelter, about 1400 meters above sea level"

"Sprze;t
Do przeprowadzenia eksperymentu wybralis'my naste;puja;cy sprze;t:
* Anteny - PARABOLIC maxi, 27 dBi - produkcji INTERLINE
* Punkty doste;powe - INTEL Pro/Wireless 2011 Access Point - produkcji firmy SYBMOL
* Kable i konektory - kable BELDEN H-1000, H-155, RG-316, wtyki VITELEC
* Karty radiowe - Lucent ORiNOCO PC Card Silver/chipset Agere, ZCom XI-300/chipset Intersil
* Wzmacniacz - 2.4 GHz o mocy 500 mW"
==>
"Equipment
For this experiment we chose:
Antenna - a 'PARABOLIC Maxi 27dBi' by INTERLINE
Access points - INTEL Pro/Wireless 2011 Access Point - manufactured by SYBMOL
Cables and Connectors - BELDEN H-1000, H-155, RG-316 cable and connectors by VITELEC
Radio cards - Lucent ORiNOCO PC Card Silver/chipset Agere, ZCom XI-300/chipset Intersil
Amplifier - 2.4GHz at 500mW"

Damn.. I'm bored.. anyone else wanna finish this?

DonP.

Re:110kms? The world record is already 310km.

[MikeHunt69]

acknowledged by Guinness (as in world records not as in beer).

The are actually the same company. (seriously)

Re:Damn measurement standards..!!

[RabidMonkey]

DAMMIT!

apparently pressing ctrl-enter submits ... same as how I submit tickets .. stupid habits die hard.

lets continue that.

Sears tower = 442m
so we have 248.8688 sears towers

Boxcar = 43 feet avg (source [railwaystation.com])
Avg freight train length=45 cars (some other site that won't load but is cached)
Avg lenght in feet = 1935 feet

google tells me theres 0.3048 metres in a foot [google.ca] so we have the avg freight train being 589.788m long.

That means we have 186.5077 freight trains (not counting engines) end to end


length of football field (cdn) = 100m
length of football field (us) = 109.1m (source [hypertextbook.com]

That leaves us with 1,100 cdn football fields, or 1008.2493 american fields.

a us dollar bill is 156mm long (source [www.thok.dk]
so that gives us 705128.2051 dollar bills, end to end

asian elephants can grow to 340cm (3.4m) (source [krugersafari.com])
so thats 32352.9412 elephants

I think thats good enough for now. back to work.

Re:Any ideas

[mustangsal66]

If you have a big fat wallet. Looking either Breezenet gear ($1000 US per radio) which freq hops for security but at 3MB transfer.

For only around $10K, you can get Tsunami gear 100Mb PTP. It runs 5.4Ghz, just don't stand infront of it.

Wirless side note. I work with last mile wireless gear. It's cool, but also on our tower is XMRadio. These fookers run at 2.478 (Yeah they don't bother to tune their antenas much). Do the math here... 200Watt radio, 12-14DB gain antenea. Licensed at 200Watts at the antenea. Our spectrum analyzer pulled them in as the stongest signal WITHOUT and antenea. Our RF tech figured out they were running at about 1800Watts at the antenea.

The good news is there are no birds nests on the tower at all.

So come on down and have a cookout.

Re:Geek factor 9.3 useful factor 1

[_avs_007]

I work with a lot of wireless APs and client cards in our lab.

If you are talking about G type stuff, stay away from Linksys, they have the crappiest range. When I used it in my house, I would get 68db with an Intel 802.11b AP, but the Linksys G router/AP yielded 77db, and that was only going through 2 walls.

I replaced it with a Netgear WGR614, which uses the Intersil Prism GT chipset (as does the D-Link we tested), and got much better range. Similar to straight B. ~68 or 69 db in my master bedroom.

In our office environment, the Linsys G would drop signal after walking past the conference rooms. The Netgear G allowed us to almost walk around the entire floor. I connected a signal booster, and found it to be next to worthless, as it did not improve range. If it did, only by 5 ft or so. It still dropped signal as I walked past the conference rooms.

The measured actual throughput was 4.5mb/s with straight 802.11b, and 21mb/s with the Netgear G.

Quite suprisingly, I had the best results with the Netgear WAB102 Dualband A/B, which is the only A/B AP that uses Atheros second generation A. Tom's Hardware had a write-up on this. Atheros had a whitepaper. I bought 3 of these, and verified the claims.

With a Linksys A+G card, (which uses Atheros 5001X+, as does Netgear WAG511), I got slightly weaker signal strength in my master bedroom 70db), but throughput killed both B and G. I was measuring 24mb/sec throughput in non-turbo mode, and 45mb/sec in turbo mode. In the office, I was able to sustain 7-11mb/sec at the opposite end of the building. The Netgear G was only able to sustain 1-2mb/s. Inside the conf rooms, Linksys G had no signal, Netgear G sustained 7mb/sec, Netgear A in turbo mode sustained 24mb/sec.

In the office, the range of this second generation A actually exceeded that of B, which is something Atheros pointed out in their whitepaper. They said while true A can't go through walls as well as B, the 1st generation A was not performing up to its capabilities. Kind of like how Shannon's law states what is the maximum amount of data that can be carried across wireless, but current technology does not even begin to approach this limit.

I've tested various client cards from Orinoco, to Cisco Aeronet, Prism 2 and Prism 3 cards, and various Atheros based cards. I that the AP affected range more often than the client cards. Though I have found that anything based on the Atmel chipset to be crap. The USB 802.11 card from Linksys (V2.6) uses this chipset. Unfortunately, the Netgear WAB102, uses Atmel for its B, so its B is crap as well. I just use the A portion of it anyways. But the new Netgear triband router, I beleive uses Atheros for all three bands, it just costs an arm and a leg.

The Linksys Triband AP, only uses Atheros for the A, it uses Broadcom for B and G, so its G sucks just like the Linksys B/G stuff.

Somewhere I also read that Linksys will not support any turbo modes in their AP/Routers. (though their A+G client card still supports turbo). Both Atheros and Intersil have planned turbo features. Atheros already had 108mb/s A support in turbo, allowing 45mb/sec throughput by using multiple channels. They already have support for hardware compression, so are promissing a future firmware update that will flip this on, that will allow a turbo mode to sustain 90mb/sec throughput. Its called SuperA. They just released SuperG, which uses multiple B/G channels and compression, to allow 108mb/sec, and I think 45-60mb/sec throughput.

Intersil's turbo technology is called Nitro. Similar (but incompatible) with Atheros's technology.