Solar Powered Wi-Fi 119
inkslinger77 writes "A small US startup has announced it has created a system for running Wi-Fi routers in remote places using only the power of the sun. Among the first round of products from Solis Energy is the Solar Power Plant, touted as being capable of supplying 12, 24 and 48 Volts DC for use in stand-alone applications such as surveillance cameras and outdoor Wi-Fi."
Struggling... (Score:3, Informative)
Been around a while.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bright idea (Score:1, Informative)
this is news ? they have been doing this for ages loads of equipment thats installed along side roads have been using solar and windpower for years in the uk
And this is 'news'? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/14481
Note 2002, FIVE years ago.
Re:Bright idea (Score:3, Informative)
But not to my living room... (Score:3, Informative)
City-wide or country-wide WiFi sounds very cool to me. But - walls are a serious problem for WiFi. This in contrast to GSM signals, however in the concrete jungle called Hong Kong (with like 6 or 8 networks), even GSM is not everywhere available, particularly indoors.
I've wireless at home. It has a problem sometimes penetrating the two concrete walls between my living room (where the access point is) and my bedroom (where I sometimes use my laptop as well). I live on the 16th floor, a wireless access point on the ground level will never reach my living room. The penetration is too poor, and the distance is too long. So for city-wide WiFi, are there better solutions available?
In the countryside the problems are of course different - mountains are in the way and distances are often huge. Yet GSM networks are already fully covering even sparsely populated countries like Sweden and Norway. Is there a way do do so for WiFi without setting up repeaters every 500m? Is there a way to penetrate walls like GSM signals do?
The technology is nice, I love it. But at this moment for wireless networking on the go I will continue to use my mobile phone, over GPRS (yes we have UMTS available but that is mighty expensive, not worth it for me). It ain't fast, but it is virtually everywhere available, and has no problem keeping a connection when sitting in the train (try that with WiFi that is not in the train itself).
All and all I wonder, why not use the existing GSM networks? Most developed countries have UTMS available everywhere (USA is a developing country when it comes to digital technology, sad as it may be). Isn't that much more convenient, and cost efficient to use than a newly built WiFi network? There are more and more unlimited wireless plans (in Hong Kong you pay about US$80-100 per month for unlimited UTMS, add say US$200 a month for unlimited UTMS/GPRS roaming in mainland China). It's there, it's ready, and it's getting cheaper fast.
Re:Bright idea (Score:3, Informative)
You are talking about a mesh network [wikipedia.org]. Should go fine. Maybe add a directional aerial to connect to it's peers over slightly longer distances, saves a 100% overlapping network.
Re:But not to my living room... (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, I had the same experience with WiFi. My room was one wall away from the router, about 20 feet. 70-80% signal, and roughly 10mbps actual throughput (measured by scp of large files). We tried to set up a computer on the other side of the house. It got either the speed of cheap cable or just enough signal to stall out but still claim it was connected. I'm on 100mbps ethernet, other machine's still out of luck...
Re:Bright idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bright idea (Score:3, Informative)
PV cells are used for lots of stuff in the UK including some of the the things you list above.