5 km Range Commercial Wi-Fi Available 131
prostoalex writes "Japanese company Maspro Denkoh will start selling transmission systems, enabling WiFi signal over 5 km, Network World magazine reports. From the article: "There are two types of antenna: one is a tube-shaped model about 40 centimeters long, and the other is a much shorter and square-shaped model. Combining two of the tubular antenna -- one on each end of the link -- will result in a transmission distance of about 5 kilometers while one of each antenna will work on distances up to 2 kilometers and two of the compact antenna will be fine for up to a kilometer, the company said.""
Re:5km? (Score:1)
whats 5km really going to achieve?
This product will achieve a large number of point-to-point connections, which might prove useful to the market until WiMAX becomes WiDESPREAD.
Re:5km? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:5km? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, that world record was a great accomplishment, but what does it do for the general consumer? I don't think anyone's going to want to carry a 10ft dish around with them. Maspro Denkoh's accomplishment is that it can be used practically.
Re:5km? (Score:1)
5km is nothing, total cake.
Off the shelf, cheap, WiFi gear that can easily do twice that -> http://www.tranzeo.com/ [tranzeo.com]
Big bad antennas that do much, much, more -> http://www.tessco.com/ [tessco.com]
Both are plenty "Commercial"
--e
Re:5km? (Score:2)
5km, bah.
Re:5km? (Score:2)
It's going to cut out the "local loop" i.e. the copper telephone cables which keep most customers tied to the old national suppliers. This is massively important if you've got wireless access and skype why pay line rental, etc.
Re:5km? (Score:3, Informative)
There're lots of uses for long-range WiFi in municipal areas which lack DSL and other broadband alternatives. Where WiFi ISP's can start offering cheaper access to their customers when they dont need to put hotspots as close anymore.
I'm currently working at such ISP, where we are currently using uplinks to local hotspots over ~20km on the 2,4 and 5ghz spectrum. Achieving a high bandwidth over these long ranges has always been a problem with r
Re:5km? (Score:1)
Good for Home (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good for Home (Score:1)
Re:Good for Home (Score:2)
Yes, but at the low low price of "The 5-km version costs ¥600,000 ($5,254)", you're getting the unheard of great value of just over a thousand bucks a kilometer. And who knows? Maybe one day you might just need one of those kilometers? And where would you be if you didn't have it, hmmm?
How? (Score:1, Informative)
How do you expect an antenna that has a 5km range to exceed 4.9 miles? That's half again farther than it what it's range is.
Repeat after me:
KILOMETERS ARE NOT MILES!!
KILOMETERS ARE NOT MILES!!
KILOMETERS ARE NOT MILES!!
Re:How? (Score:2, Informative)
All-caps shouting is evil!
All-caps shouting is evil!
All-caps shouting is evil!
Re:Good for Home (Score:3, Informative)
These are directional antennas, and directionality is achieved by focusing.
If you used something like this for indoor coverage, you would have one small corridor of great signal, and more dead spots than you started with.
If you want great indoor coverage use this stuff: http://www.andrew.com/products/trans_line/radiax/
--e
Directional vs. Omnidirectional (Score:1)
Re:Good for Huge Home (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good for Home (Score:3)
it doesn't increase total power, rather focuses it on a smaller sector..
and it costs an arm and a leg.
if you want your house better covered buy couple of those wlan ap's that can extend each others range.. a lot cheaper than buying these antennas too.
Re:Good for Home - Health issues? (Score:1)
Re:Good for Home (Score:1, Informative)
What would the FFC do? (Score:5, Funny)
FCC has no jurisdiction ... IN JAPAN (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps the limits on transmitter antenna gain are less strict ... IN JAPAN!
Re:FCC has no jurisdiction ... IN JAPAN (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, since it won't scale to become widespread, they probably wouldn't have to.
Dense areas can't support this kind of thing for thousands of people in a square mile.
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:3, Interesting)
Eg.
FCC recieves complaints of wireless interference from someone.
FCC says "Well, that band is unlicensed, tough."
FCC recieves complaints of interference of licensed band from wireless source.
FCC sends a fellow out with directional equipment, locates your AP, knocks on your door and says "Hi, I'm from the FCC. It looks like your running a illegal high-powered transmitter there. Care to turn that off? It's interfering with the hospital 3 b
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:2)
The FCC used to do what you described in the past, but from what I understand, that sort of enforcement has tapered off considerably.
Sec. 15.23 Home-built devices (Score:2)
Re:Sec. 15.23 Home-built devices (Score:2)
I would agree that if you're buying a complete package like the article describes that you can't legitimately claim you've got a "homebuilt" setup. However, I was replying to the more general question of "will the FCC come after you for using a non-approved antenna?", which is a bit of a gray area. I'm not sure if the FCC considers connecting a mass-manufactured antenna to a mass-manufactured wireless card that weren't engineered to go together would be conside
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:1)
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:1)
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:1, Informative)
The FCC regulates all radio communications within the United States. Just because the frequencies that WiFi utilizes don't require a license (within a certain power level), doesn't mean you have free reign of the spectrum.
BTW, this is perfect for amateur radio operators looking to extend their WiFi networks. Hey, we're licensed!
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:1)
Above 300gHz (and below 3kHz), it is unregulated, and you can do whatever you want (probably won't be effective, given the nature of the bands, though). There are no restrictions on what is done, nor who does it.
45mHz, 900mHz, 2.4gHz, 5gHz, 24gHz, and 60gHz (and some others) are regulated, but unlicenced. The FCC sets restrictions on what can be done, but not who can do it.
Most other usefull frequencies are reserved for licenced (or military /
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:1)
Oops.
Re:What would the FFC do? (Score:1)
Now that, my friends, is a super troll!!!
Re:What about WiMax? (Score:2, Funny)
How many different wireless cards will I need to use all the different technologies. .
42.
. .
Yeah, but it's going to sting like a son of a bitch.
KFG
Yeah and? (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't think anyone will care if it isn't at least half the power of broadband with a reliable connection.
I would say that this article is nonsense, because it doesn't touch on whether or not it can actually scale to meet commercial demand, but that would give the impression that I didn't read the title, that being [...] Commercial Wi-Fi Available.
On top of that, the summary doesn't even say where this is available, and whether or not it will be elsehwere. I'm left to assume this
Re:Yeah and? (Score:2, Informative)
Perfect! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Perfect! (Score:2)
Re:Perfect! (Score:1)
So what, lots of other companies have done it.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So what, lots of other companies have done it.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So what, lots of other companies have done it.. (Score:1)
Nothing new here (Score:2, Insightful)
Old News (Score:2)
Unless this new system is *dramatically* faster than what I've got now (Motorola Canopy), there's really no point.
Re:Old News (Score:1)
No WiFi system will beat Canopy (or Trango, etc...).
Better than Canopy: http://www.navini.com/ [navini.com]
Better Canopy: http://www.lastmilegear.com/ [lastmilegear.com]
--e
Been there, done that...big yawn (Score:2, Informative)
As others have pointed out, sending a WiFi signal over distances greater than 500 feet is nothing special. I worked for an ISP in 2001/2002 that was doing wireless Internet service. At the time, Verizon did not give a rat's ass for doing DSL there, and the local cable company couldn't find their ass with GPS unit and a flashlight, so they didn't matter either. The longest distance we did was 15 miles, that was through high voltage electircal transmission lines (125,000 to 250,000 Volt range ones) and ove
Whatev... (Score:1)
Re:Whatev... (Score:1)
See, I spend much of my driving time around 60W radios, but it's on 146 MHz. So I don't sweat it. Now, if it was 60W at 2.4 GHz...
-shudder-
Re:Whatev... (Score:1)
Re:Whatev... (Score:1)
Y'know, seriously though. I can make it from Pensacola to Fort Walton Beach (35 miles) on 60 watts with an ITSY BITSY TINY LITTLE BITTY 5/8ths wave mag-mount. At 144 MHz.
Explain to me why the local FM station needs 50 KILOWATTS at 99 MHz to make it clearly across the same distance? Hmmm?
Oh, yeah, I know, I know, being able to listen to the radio inside buildings. WhatEVER.
-grumble-
Re:Whatev... (Score:1)
Re:Whatev... (Score:1)
Re:Whatev... (Score:1)
Re:Whatev... (Score:1)
Ah... (Score:2)
Power Requirement, Weight? (Score:1)
is this really new technology (Score:1)
This is not new. (Score:1)
Re:This is not new. (Score:1)
If you can get 50Mb+ in low power, weight (Score:1)
Re:If you can get 50Mb+ in low power, weight (Score:1)
Proxim Wireless (Score:1)
This is their cheap-end stuff, but it will do Point-to-Point, Point-to-Multi-Point. I've worked with it up to 6 miles over land. 60Mbps theorhetical throughput, 30-50mbps can be had with multiple TCP connections. It can run on the 2.4, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.8Ghz bands.
Proxim has stuff that will do strict point-to-point up to 1.5Gbps [proxim.com] on the unlicensed 60 Ghz spectrum
Re:If you can get 50Mb+ in low power, weight (Score:2)
Latency? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not any more than any other medium (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Latency? (Score:1)
effect of propogation delay on 802.11 (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct that latency is an issue. For 802.11 especially, since each packet is acknowledged individually before the next one is sent (imagine TCP with a fixed window size of 1), you add 1 round trip time to the time to send each packet (at 11mbps, a 1500 byte packet takes about a millisecond and a half, and the acknowledgement takes a few hundred microseconds, so this isn't really a big performance killer).
Another effect, though, is with transmission timeouts. Suppose station A sends a packet, an
Re:Latency? (Score:2)
From memory, I seem to remember that propagation times for copper is about 2/3 the speed of light. (Meaning you get 50% more latency for the same distance.) So, for the same distance, wireless actually gets less latency due to physical propagation times than copper.
In fiberoptic cables, the propagation time is the speed of light (maybe slightly slower since it's passing through the fiberoptic medium, I don't know). But since cab
Anyone surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
This is just a random press release from a company selling boring old wireless kit. There isn't anything special about getting 5km of range with off the shelf wireless gear,
If anyone cares the math is not that hard to follow:
You take the transmitter output power, subtract any loss in the cable between the transmitter and the antenna, add the gain of the anteana. http://db.osoal.org.nz/eirp-calculator.html [osoal.org.nz]
Then you have to subtract the free space loss of your path ( the loss you get by putting the signal across the air ): http://db.osoal.org.nz/freespace-loss-calculator.h tml [osoal.org.nz]
And finally you add the recieve gain of the receiving antenna, subtract the loss from the cable on the recieving end and compare with the receive sensitivity of your wireless receiver. I have bundled the rest of the calculation into this bit of javascript. [osoal.org.nz]
For example, if I have two 2.4ghz radios that output 15dbm (32mw) that have a recieve sensitivity of -83db that are in waterproof boxes on the antenna mounting connected to two 22db antenna's 5km apart very roughly.
15db - 1db + 22db = 36db or ~3981mw (just under the 4 watt max).
- 121.65db for our free space loss
+ 22db - 1db = -64.65
-64.65 is the strength of the signal received at the other end, fortunately the receiver has a receive sensitivity of -83 so we are in business. There is a link margin of ~19db to account for a little bit of noise, fade, solar flares, alien abductions etc.
If you want more range, increase the power of the transmitter or the gain of your antenna. The government limits ( 4 watts for 2.4ghz, 250mw for 5.3ghz and 4 watts for 5.8Ghz in New Zealand ) are going to determine your maximum range barring some magical new wireless gear that has a better receive sensitivity.
What's $5,254 worth (Score:1)
Not to ask a stupid question, but... (Score:1)
Then what?
Health Concerns? (Score:1)
Re:Health Concerns? (Score:1, Informative)
These wireless things are very low power, in the U.S. 2.4 is limited to 1W (30dBm) transmit power. If we give these guys _way_ more credit than they deserve, and say their antenna is 20dBi (would be illegal by FCC standards, unless you cut the TX power to ~600mW; but what the hey, lets exagerate), which gives you 50dBm EIRP (100W). Due to the 3-dimensional nature of RF propagation, the power falls of as the inverse square of the di
Better receivers, not stronger transmitters! (Score:1)
It is just as effective to create better receivers, that could for instance listen to signs from up to 5KM that even in large clusters would not fry your brain.
Just a thought.
Re:Better receivers, not stronger transmitters! (Score:2)
Also the 5 kilometers is with a directional antenna at each at. That's transmitting AND receiving. I highly doubt your are going to do anything to your brain with stuff anyway. Not unless you sit for hours on end with your head right infront of the transmitting antenna.
Wireless in general (Score:1)
Now, I live in Billings, MT and the weather around here isn't exactly great some times. Yesterday
we had 9.08" of snow, my internet went down, along with power for about 2 hours, and to top it off
the TV stations went west on some channels. After about 13:00 today everything cleared up.
I will be switching to DSL via Quest, and Direct TV at some point.
My point? Wireless access is great "if" the weather is fine, but
Re:Wireless in general (Score:1)
I notice my signal is better in the winter months, probably because foilage cover is way less here in Indiana.
Re:Wireless in general (Score:2)
Also, I'm not 100% but bad weather tends to hose my sattelite connection here (I'm on sky)
Re:Wireless in general (Score:1)
Not just a yagi. Link (Score:2)
Super.... (Score:2)
Re:Super.... (Score:1)
This doesn't make any sense (Score:1)
Designing antennas (Score:1)
Good Luck with that.. (Score:2)
As an WISP, this is the exact reason we are ripping out all the 2.4 equipment, it's pretty much useless now.. you can only get a reliable like like 500ft from a tower (which is pretty shitty). this is amped and
Antennuation (Score:2)
Re:Antennuation (Score:2)
The important quantity is the ratio W^2/Lamda, where W is the size of the object (obstruction, receiving antenna, sending antenna), and Lamda the wavelength (about 0.12 m at 2.4 GHz). This is an indication for the distance over which the beam profile is smoothened out due to diffraction. For W=1 m, the shadow will be negligible after 8 meters. (For a narrow laser beam, W=3mm, Lamda=600 nm, the distance is 15 meter).
The q
Pringles Anyone (Score:1)
Re:FCCs Problems? (Score:2)
Re:FCCs Problems? (Score:2)
Re:FCCs Problems? (Score:1)
Re:Poor Man's Wifi Antenna? (Score:2, Informative)
Of course. Here we go:
Re:Poor Man's Wifi Antenna? (Score:1)
Re:certainly, not for sale in Japan (Score:1)
(Insert unfunny observation about correlation about size of a certain part of the body here.)
Re:certainly, not for sale in Japan (Score:1)
I had to buy a Japanese Wi-Fi card when I went to Japan this summer, the reception was pretty bad aswell. I got about 50% signal strength for the access point being on the other side of the house. Oh yeah also Wi-Fi does not support Japanese Broadband well either. I could only get 1.2m/s on OCN's 56mbit dsl network.
Next time I'll bring my amercian access point.