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Wireless Networking Intel Hardware

Intel Pushes 802.16a Wireless MAN Standard 135

Posted by michael from the data-for-everyone dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The 802.16a standard, approved in January of this year, is a wireless metropolitan area network technology that will connect 802.11 hot spots to the Internet and provide a wireless extension to cable and DSL for last mile broadband access. It provides up to 50-kilometers of range and allows users to get broadband connectivity without needing a direct line of sight with the base station. The wireless broadband technology also provides shared data rates up to 70-Mbit/s."
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Intel Pushes 802.16a Wireless MAN Standard More

Intel Pushes 802.16a Wireless MAN Standard

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  • Martin Cooper on WiFi (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zeoslap ( 190553 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:25PM (#5688266) Homepage
    Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone had this in a recent interview http://news.com.com/2008-1082-995667.html

    "Wi-Fi is wonderful. It is a superb local area network--what it was designed to do--and it does that very well. When you try to make Wi-Fi cover a wide area, it's absolutely the worst way to do it. Think about it. In order to cover a city, you need a million sites; we actually did an analysis of that. And every one of them has got to have backhaul. So it turns out it's neither economical nor practical."

    I realise this is WiMax but I wonder what they are doing to move beyond the limitations these guys found.
    • Go to wimaxforum [wimaxforum.org] for technical info.

      • Re:Martin Cooper on WiFi (Score:5, Insightful)

        by robslimo ( 587196 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:07PM (#5688514) Homepage Journal
        To clarify,

        And every one of them has got to have backhaul

        WiMAX isn't expected to be what you use to hit the 'hotspots' with your notebook. It is expected to feed the hotspots... it *is* the backhaul. Naturally it must have it's own, land-based backhaul, but that's no sweat for guys who'll be rolling this out.

        The idea of 'free' zones will largely pass when the people with the money to make wireless internet work finally get the tech and the business model worked out. Yes, I said *business*. Sure, there will be people, organizations and towns who'll foot the bill for small hotspots, but to make it work, to make it ubiquitous such that you *expect* it to work, will be require a commercial model. 802.16a is the first major technological step toward this model's feasibility.

        • Hmm Ok, so am I right in saying that you have WiMax providing a backbone of sorts and then the WiFi hotspots pulling their bandwidth from this as opposed to landbased solutions.

          Is there really a problem right now with regards getting bandwidth to hotspots ? Is this solution targerted more towards rural communities than cities or am I still missing the point ?
          • Unfortunately, I see rural areas being below the radar of ISP's for a long time to come. Unless it's government mandated (and 'ratepayer' funded in the utility model) there's just not enough money in it.

            No, I think the target is precisely metro areas. Just as cellular telephony started in cities, then expanded to the countryside, the rollout cost of blanket wireless networking must be paid by a large initial audience before it will succeed. The backers seem to think that 802.16a is the solution... it's

          • Re:Martin Cooper on WiFi (Score:4, Interesting)

            by petecarlson ( 457202 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:34PM (#5688745) Homepage Journal
            Yes, there is a problem getting bandwidth to hotspots.
            I run a wireless "hotspot" in Baltimore which serves a two block area. If I were to bump to a T1 I would need about 50 monthly subscribers to cover costs and a small profit. In order to do this I need to expand my range which means I need to set up additional acess points. The problem is that where the acess points need to be is not line of site to my base station so I would have to have a wired conection to each point or have a series of repeaters. This isn't practicle or cost effective.
            If I could set up an 802.16 base pushing bandwidth to five or six 802.11b acess points then I could run them all off of one T1 line and put them in locations where they need to be.

          • Hotspots are a red herring; the article only mentions them because that's the latest hype wave.

            802.16 is a wireless competitor to DSL and cable modems.
            • Now THAT makes sense. I was trying to figure out how having some wireless backbone technology to connect WiFi hotspots together was going to do anything. I don't know how it is in other metro areas, but here in Portland, most of the city has either DSL or cable Internet available. Most places have a choice. Both are expensive, but worth it.

              But if (as some previous poster said) it takes a million WiFi hotspots to cover a city, then I don't see how changing the way they connect to the Internet changes th
        • here is the comercial modle. you walk into a zone owned by some one and your Palm/PocketPC beeps and displays a message

          "you have entered a hot zone owned by such and such, would you like to make a connection?"

          yes no

          you can pay 20 dollors for the day or 50 cents per min. or if you like, you can get a year subscription for $400.

          what would you like to do?

          day
          min
          year .....

          that is going to be tyhe business modle.

          sure eventualy you will have consolidation so you end up with companies with very large range
          • Actually, I've got an alternative commercial model:
            An area (or national) ISP offers (and bills) it's customers hotspot access. Anyone who owns a hotspot can sign a deal with the ISP (or multiple ISPs). When the ISP signs on and authenticates via a participating hotspot, the hotspot providor then bills the ISP for the access.
            The authentication and accounting aspects can be handled with existing protocols, but it may be easier to impliment with IPv6 (roaming IP's without tunnels, encryption at the link leve
    • 802.11[b,a,g] is WiFi, this is 802.16a [eetimes.com]. (Note 802.3 is Ethernet, but this isn't Ethernet either). Granted, there's a provision in the spec for linking 802.11 WAN's, but the much more interesting part of the spec is the MAN stuff, with 20km links. The IEEE usually gets these things right, so I wouldn't worry about Mr. Cooper's concerns.

      I need this - the only low-latency broadband I can get at my house (in a lovely pastoral setting 7.2 miles from the CO my line is served from, but of course not the closes
    • I realise this is WiMax but I wonder what they are doing to move beyond the limitations these guys found.

      We've [beamreachnetworks.com] been trialing on east coast for most of the last year.

    • >>In order to cover a city, you need a million
      >>sites; we actually did an analysis of that. And
      >>every one of them has got to have backhaul.

      Not necessarily true. Higher end Wifi vendors have dual radio APs. One radio handles data traffic, the other "hops" wirelessly to other APs eventually back to a wire. All you need is AC power. Imagine a network of these wireless APs with one (or two) root APs that have both 802.11b for data hops and 802.16a for connecting back to the wire.

  • Security!!! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Slack0ff ( 590042 )
    Hey I never got much of a chance to read up on this but with the advertised range what is the security like? Dont tell me its like that pushover excuse for protection known as WEP on 802.11b. My big concern is that with all this range it will be hard to pinpoint where the guy with a card and a laptop is tryign to get your stuff. Or steal connection from an ISP? Anyone got any thoughts or know the security specifics?

    • Re:Security!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Security with WiFi is no less secure than hard wired networks. The fact that anyone even suggests this at all is extremely frustrating. Its not unlike the claims made by mainstream reporters claiming that web cookies are a way to spy on you.

      Check out the following oscast editorial for more info on the subject: No need to feel insecure about Zeroconf / Rendezvous security - February 27, 2003 [oscast.com]
      • I think where people get mixed up is in the fact that with a wired network you have to find the wire to tap the network where as with wireless the signal is just out there to grab and look at.

        So as far as things go the wire protocols are probably less secure but far more obscure.

      • You'd be correct if there weren't multiple bugs in both the WEP protocol and in most common implementations. As it stands, most implementations (Cisco's is a notable exception) use the same keys for all traffic. That means that you can park your wireless notebook near an AP and deduce the keys in a few hours. If your wired office is next to mine, there's no way for me to sniff your traffic. If your wireless office is next to mine, I can crack your keys and see your traffic.

        There are also fundamental ke

    • Re:Security!!! (Score:5, Funny)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:41PM (#5688374) Homepage Journal
      Hey I never got much of a chance to read up on this but with the advertised range what is the security like? Dont tell me its like that pushover excuse for protection known as WEP on 802.11b. My big concern is that with all this range it will be hard to pinpoint where the guy with a card and a laptop is tryign [sic] to get your stuff. Or steal connection from an ISP? Anyone got any thoughts or know the security specifics?

      Right on the heels of this article [slashdot.org], I'm more worried about War Cooking... gangs of nerdish thugs driving around cities, looking for open access to my microwave.

      07:10 AM Cook for 10 minutes
      07:20 AM Done
      07:22 AM Cook for 15 minutes
      07:37 AM Done
      07:48 AM Cook for 5 minutes
      07:53 AM Done
      08:04 AM Cook for 3 minutes
      08:07 AM Done
      08:14 AM Cook for 25 minutes
      Smoke alarm goes off, firemen arrive, haul smoking carcass of microwave out into street.

    • You can probably get on to the WWAN quite easily. Whether you would be able to get on to the internet from there is quite a different matter. The ISP may deploy a VPN over the WWAN that you have to log in to in order to allow access to the internet to people have paid the fees.
      • I doubt it.

        Home users would rather have a router with (gasp) PPPoE or the like than a VPN. I certainly don't want to have to set up a VPN client to get online. Where was the last sub-$150 router that supported VPN access by the router?
        • The home users wouldn't have any choice in the matter. If the ISP only supports VPN access then that's it.

          I'm sure any WWAN router would handle VPN. I've not found that setting up a VPN is any more difficult than PPPOE.

          • ...but the ISP would have a choice.

            Any WWAN router would be merely an 802.11(x) router with a WWAN card slapped in. I know of no routers or firewalls that directly support VPN, and I believe that this would be a poor choice on the part of the ISP. A widely used standard (PPPoE) should be used for fast adoption of the service. A special client/service rings much too close to AOL-like.
            • Any WWAN router would be merely an 802.11(x) router with a WWAN card slapped in.

              Most routers I'm familiar with don't have separate cards. In any case we're talking about 802.16 here, remember?

              I know of no routers or firewalls that directly support VPN,

              I'm using two at the moment. Contivity firewalls support VPN among others. You'd need a new router for 802.16 anyway,and the newer routers tend to support it out of the box.

              A widely used standard (PPPoE) should be used for fast adoption of the service.

              C

              • A special client/service rings much too close to AOL-like.

                Must be your provider huh?

                Nice 'bait.

                Let me clarify myself:
                I meant sub-$150 routers.

                Do you know of any routers for under $150 that could add VPN support for less than an additional $5 or so, or if these exist, then can you link instead of flaming me?

                kthxbye
                • Do you know of any routers for under $150 that could add VPN support for less than an additional $5 or so, or if these exist,

                  I have a Netgear MR-314 which is a 802.11b wireless router with 5 ethernet ports; you should be able to get that for much less than that; and it has VPN passthrough, which is what you need. I've also got a D-LINK DSL-504 adsl router which also has VPN passthrough, both built-in, no extra cost. The former is much less than $150 right no, the latter goes for about that much.

                  then ca

    • 802.16 has good security. IIRC all endpoints are authenticated and all traffic is (correctly) encrypted.

  • First Post... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is the first post originating from at least 50km away from the nearest communications cable.

  • Some acronyms for ya (Score:5, Funny)

    by cmburns69 ( 169686 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:29PM (#5688293) Homepage Journal
    LAN = Local Area Network
    WAN = Wide Area Network
    MAN = Metropoliton Area Network
    WOMAN = Wide Open Metropolitan Area Network, which is what most of those 802.11 networks will be...

    An online Starcraft RPG? Only at [netnexus.com]
  • 50 km... so you could get on your home network from the next city over? What about interference or hacking? If you have 1 million people using this standard, each overlapping, wouldn't that create massive headaches? Or, would that 50 km range be only applied by "select" companies that pay cash to the city(s) and maker of the hardware? It has the potential to become a disaster, but if done right... imagine surfing from home connected to work with a T1 line.

    • Re:Range for the big boys (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "What about interference or hacking?"

      Security with WiFi is no less secure than hard wired networks. The fact that anyone even suggests this at all is extremely frustrating. Its not unlike the claims made by mainstream reporters claiming that web cookies are a way to spy on you.

      Check out the following oscast editorial for more info on the subject: No need to feel insecure about Zeroconf / Rendezvous security - February 27, 2003 [oscast.com]
      • "Security with WiFi is no less secure than hard wired networks."

        I beg to differ. With WiFi, you can leech bandwidth off your neighbor (ie the whole city with 16a.) with wired, it's a wee bit harder.

        And I'm sorry I frustrate you, I'm doing all I can!

  • How else would they get people to rationalize buying
    all their new Centrino crap?
  • You reckon those (possibly overabundant and overfunded) WiFi startups are in on this?

    It would be par for the course for a newer technology to lay waste to grand entrepeneurial visions... but since this standard was approved in January, hopefully some of those startups have it 802.16a in their sights.

  • Standards... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sgtsanity ( 568914 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:32PM (#5688317)
    They had better make a standard for the naming of all these standards, or else my head is going to start spinning.

  • No thanks (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Jaguar777 ( 189036 )
    I don't think I want to share 70-Mbit/s with everyone using the service within a 50 kilometer range.

    • Re:No thanks (Score:2, Insightful)

      by robslimo ( 587196 )
      So don't share, sell. See if you can work out a bandwidth reselling agreement from an ISP in your area, get a fat pipe, go to town.

      Obviously it's not just that easy, but if you can work up a business plan, get a willing ISP partner, and 802.11x partners around town, you could sign people up for wireless... Which is what 802.16a is for anyway.

    • Yeah thats always been my big argument against wide area networks. You end up with a fixed amount of bandwidth over a given area. With wired networks if you need more bandwidth there is usually room for another wire, but rarely is there more room on the air for more data.

      I think the key (and they might have this as part of the protocol given that I haven't read the article) is to have a large number of very small area connections that are wired together. That way you split the 70mbit/s connection with far f

  • Miracles from Where? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by LordMyren ( 15499 )
    How does 802.16a hope to achieve these lofty goals?

    What band does it use? Considering its long distance, the 802.11a 5Ghz range seems a bit out of the question, just too energy hungry. If its 2.4, i cant see how they expect it to compete with every other signal under the sun and still pull off such spectactamundo specs.

    Typical transmition power?

    Now wouldnt it be nice to have a frequency not in tune with water? So maybe vegitation isnt a big iron curtain between you and your data? Bring that critical

  • Get the Pringles and call the SETI people! (Score:5, Funny)

    by worst_name_ever ( 633374 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:43PM (#5688391)
    If a Pringles can is able to extend the range of 802.11 wireless LAN to several km, then a similar application of tubular snack food waveguide technology to this new standard ought to solve the question of "are we alone in the universe" once and for all!

  • By the time this arrives... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by path_man ( 610677 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:45PM (#5688402)

    ...the CDMA carriers (SprintPCS and Verizon) will have 2Mbps 1xEVDO (TRUE 3G networks) up and active. The biggest single limiting factor to creating a wireless infrastructure is that somewhere it has to tie into fibre optics. Wireless carriers, nacent though the technology is today, have this figured out. Some xx,000 wireless radio towers all terminate at a base station connected to real telco networks.

    Creating new wireless networks for purposes of roaming inside a metropolitan area seems like a big waste of resources -- especially considering that wireless carriers have already figured this out.

    • 2Mbps SHARED, max few 100Kbps (Score:4, Interesting)

      by univgeek ( 442857 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:59PM (#5688466)
      You wanna share 2Mbps,( and pay through your nose), or you wanna share 11Mbps (.11b), 54Mbps(.11a,g) ??

      Especially if this is a fixed application, and doesn't need to be truly mobile?
    • And they will happily charge you $5 per minute for that access.

      Something tells me 802.11b is a little cheaper.

      -- iCEBaLM
    • And before then we will see EDGE from T-Mobile and AT&T. (I'm guessing AT&T will beat them all with 3g, they have cool features like buddy location allready, too.)

    • Re:By the time this arrives... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vought ( 160908 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:24PM (#5688663)
      ...the CDMA carriers (SprintPCS and Verizon) will have 2Mbps 1xEVDO (TRUE 3G networks) up and active. The biggest single limiting factor to creating a wireless infrastructure is that somewhere it has to tie into fibre optics. Wireless carriers, nacent though the technology is today, have this figured out. Some xx,000 wireless radio towers all terminate at a base station connected to real telco networks.

      You know, I've been hearing this exact verbiage for four years now, and I don't believe it any more. When I worked at Metricom, Ricochet was the product that was going to be 'killed' by 3G. Luckily for 3G, Metricom's brain-dead, overspendy management and ridiculous pricing model killed the company instead. Curiously, the arrangement Intel seems to be proposing here is strikingly similar to the dual-band microcellular architecture Ricochet used/uses. Microcellular architecture has some unique strengths, as evidenced by the fact that Ricochet was the ONLY way to get data to ground zero in the days immediately following the WTC attacks.

      Now the previous poster is saying this uplink and backhaul arrangement will be obviated by 3G. You know what? Show me. Then I'll believe it. Until then, I don't think 3G will ever solve anything for anyone.

      3G sounds like great technology. But it isn't shipping, and there are LOTS of caveats. have you ever seen a technology that worked out of the box? 3G is still "months" away, and it probably won't work as advertised when it does ship, if ever. Perhaps 3G should be renamed "Duke Nukem Forever Wireless".

      I'm tired of hearing "wait until 3G". Hell, I'm tired of waiting.

    • >...the CDMA carriers

      So? GPRS is here today and you pay through the nose and sometimes through other orifices I'm too polite to mention.

      Cell carriers have a huge incentive to bill per megabyte (or kilobyte). It may be the only way they're going to turn a profit. Wireless designed for a MAN has a huge incentive not to pay per byte, but to give it away and bill as a "last mile" carrier a la DSL, Cable, etc.

      Heh, I can't wait to see my 3G bill after getting those new Mandrake ISOs.

      "Honey, did you dow

  • Community Wireless (Score:3, Interesting)

    by composer777 ( 175489 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @04:46PM (#5688404)
    I wonder if this will be cheap enough to use with community wirless networks, or if we'll be stuck trying to extend the range of 802.11b? I would hate to see the wireless spectrum sold to the highest bidder the way domains were, but it seems that this may in fact happen unless laws are created to protect non-profit community access networks.

    We have one such group here in Atlanta called atlantafreenet.org
    The project looks fairly promising, and they already have a backbone up, but it requires a line of site. Does anyone have any prices on this equipment? I would hate to see the price of this technology made artificially high or have the bandwidth used up by the highest bidder. Hopefully we'll see communities creating their own free networks out of this.
  • On one side the marketing at Intel is pushing for 802.11a, and on the other side, the company offers technology with 802.11b only. What you can get from Intel as far as Wi-Fi in the new line of x86 laptops is an inferior 802.11b. Intel 802.11b chipset is significantly worse than other players like broadcom that even reviewers of ZDNet flag the chip has been mediocre.

    And currently, if I want to get a laptop with 802.11a or both 802.11a/b (which makes more sense currently since a is not so popular), I can no
    • This is 802.16a ...not 802.11b...totally different standards.

      Don't worry. You'll probably never use 802.16a explicitly, but rather through an 802.11b system.
      • "Don't worry. You'll probably never use 802.16a explicitly, but rather through an 802.11b system."

        You got that wrong. To suggest that somebody will access an 802.11a network over an 802.11b connection is incorrect.

        802.11a (high-speed) is incompatible with 802.11b (slow-er speed). Only 802.11g (high-speed) is compatible with 802.11b (slow-er speed).
        • I was suggesting that they would access an 802.11b router, which would then itself be bridged somehow to the 802.16a interface..I'm not an idiot....the 802.16a would be the backend and wired somehow to the 802.11b.

          Also, it's 802.16a, not 802.11a,.,.,I wish people would get it correct. Don't imply I'm wrong when you aren't even using the correct standards...802.11a is completely different from 802.16a (802.11a is yet another hotspot standard and 16a is the longrange one for non hotspot usage)

  • 802.16 is not wifi, not 802.11 at all (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:00PM (#5688469)
    Totally different standards. And for a typical long-haul connection both endpoints are staticly configured, so the security protocols like WEP and AES aren't needed at the layer2/1 level. Instead, each endpoint should just run a vpn. Still vulnerable to denial of service due to spoofing, but it's wireless - that's unavoidable. The key is to make it unlikely by limiting its usefulness, and with a vpn running, an attacker can only deny service, never gain free service or snoop the medium for anything useful.
    • VPN: absolutely fantastic idea. Honestly, i think all wireless communications should use VPN's. Pitty freeswan doesnt move, and I'm not ready to put production servers on 2.5, much less a componenet i'm fairly sure has a long long ways to go (what do you expect from a component as complex as the kernel itself).

      I'd really like a DHCP server that points to a web proxy where you login to the VPN, and that helps to configure the client VPN. Unfortunately, VPN is such a nightmare right now in linux that I ca

  • wires (Score:4, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:02PM (#5688480) Journal
    Plug em in

    Wires are the future

    When all you wireless guys cancer ridden corpses are long since buried, those of us with wires will be enjoying the fruits of the new millenium.

    Ever try to assasinate someone with piano 'air'? No. You need wire.
    • When all you wireless guys cancer ridden corpses are long since buried, those of us with wires will be enjoying the fruits of the new millenium.

      in the days before the first robot wars, machines made MAN after their own image and saw that it was good...
      - excerpt from the robot bible (circa 2600 AD)
    • The average person is already exposed to more radiation than the average computer geek; it's called "sunlight." Big glowing ball of gas in the sky. Lights up everything. Amazing thing, really. ;) (You may know it as, "that damn thing that keeps causing glare on my monitor and interrupts my sleep at two in the afternoon...)

      Seriously, I was wondering about the radiation. The obvious question is, is there more radiation now than before, or are we simply utilizing a frequency that already has naturally-occ

  • Seems a little fishy to me . . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by div_2n ( 525075 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:03PM (#5688488)
    Something doesn't add up to me. You can already go up to 72mi/115.8km with 802.11b in the 2.4 range. I know you don't get that high of data transfer that way but you can get really good transfers easily up to 24mi/38.6km and higher.

    The only good I see coming from this will be more non-overlapping channels. But I noticed that some of the frequencies they are talking about are in the licensed bands. I really don't see how they are going to make that affordable unless the FCC opens up some frequencies.

    It seems to me that cost effective deployment of such technology might be a good ways away unless I am missing something. If I am, please someone clear things up for me.
  • When I thought about this for a second...

    It seems to me that this is the backend for the 802.11b and/or 802.11g wireless hotspots. Try this scenario..

    Say I own a lot of starbucks (if they allow franchising, but this is an example so it doesn't matter).

    I have a big fat oc3 sitting in downtown LA ready to serve bandwith to a lot of starbucks in LA. It would be MUCH more economical to pay for just one oc3 rather then a bunch of t1's or even cable modems for EACH starbucks. Using this technology, you pay
  • With a radius of 50KM, we're talking 24649 square kilometers. At 72mbit, that's a total of 3 kilobits per square kilometer. Such speed! And imagine if you had more than one customer per square kilometer, as one would expect in a metropolitan environment...

    • Re:This is going to be slow. -- silly proposition (Score:4, Insightful)

      by victim ( 30647 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:33PM (#5688736)
      Now thats just silly. Correct arithmetic does not make correct conclusion. Oh wait, I just checked in preview, your arithmetic is wrong. PI*r*r... 3.141596*50*50 = 7853sqkm... ~9kbps/sqkm. Maybe you used PI*PI*r*r? Anyway, to continue...

      Just like cellular phone cell size, you tailor the coverage area to match the number of subscribers. In an urban area you use small cells, as small as a block or 4, in rural areas crank it up and cover a whole county. (I'm from Missouri, ours fit. Nevadans and Austrailians not so.)
    • Of course, most deployments will use much smaller (1-5 mile radius) cells. Also keep in mind that the cells are sectored.

  • What people are saying about 802.16 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dusty ( 10872 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @05:30PM (#5688712) Homepage

    From grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/16/pub/buzz.html [ieee.org]

    What People Are Saying about 802.16 This dated list includes an incomplete but nonselective collection of external references. If you have items that you'd like added to the list, notify the Working Group Chair, who compiled it.
  • How else do you think I can get my Centrino(TM) Laptop to have a connection on:

    the driving range
    the 5 meter platform
    the roof of my skyscraper

  • Just when gas prices had made it too expensive to go war driving. Whole cities can be owned by simply driving down the main roads.

  • Link to REAL information (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It appears that almost the entire /. crowd today has not even a glimmer of a clue as to what 802.16 is all about sooooo .... 10101 ~ -< ))) "802.16" ((( >- ~ 10101 [wirelessman.org].

  • Do we have any type of licensed or unlicenced spectrum to go along with that protocol? Otherwise it seems kind of useless.

  • "802.16a Wireless MAN", is that a new Marvel super hero?
  • uh, for us married folk, umm, ain't never gonna happen. they ain't never lettin' go of the riens.
  • I bet you could hit most of your employees' homes with a 50km reach.

    One tower. Bunch of 802.11/802.16 devices to send home, matched with 802.1x/p/q and IPphones...

    Remote access in a box.
  • wireless MAN, wireless MAN does everything that a wireless can what's it like? that's not important wireless MAN (with apologies to They Might Be Giants)
  • so a shared speed of 70mbits divided by a hypothetical 1 million users offers you a whopping 70bits a second..

    WOW
  • Mesh ultra wide band is where its at. Small scale flexible networking. Path from point A to point B gets clogged? Just use the untouched path to point C, then back to B. Good ole almost sorta kinda grid networking.

    Very high speed switching antenna arrays should really help, allowing for the dynamic directionalizing to focus beams on the fly, sans mechanical apparati. I dont really know much about UWB in relation to this, if its even possible with UWB, but if its possible, it'd be pretty crucial.

    Myren

  • Kickass idea. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cinematique ( 167333 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2003 @09:43PM (#5690195)
    TV is moving off of the VHF band as the eventual HDTV revolution takes place. But what's stopping Acme Wireless from saying, "Hey, only channels 4,6, and 10 are being used in this area. Why don't we add some sort of auto-sensing feature to broadband wireless equiptment and start using parts of VHF today..." and then asking the FCC for help? Then, when the machinery starts hopping packets to other routers that are close to other television markets, it switches to another unused set of frequencies.

    I'm just thinking of a solution like that little channel button on 2.4ghz wireless phones.

    Technically infeasable?

    If it worked, it'd be a hella way to jumpstart nationwide wireless Internet via the VHF band now and not a decade or two from now.

    Thoughts?

  • I attended a talk [acm.org] today by Roger B. Marks, a member of the IEEE 802.16 standards committee where he described the standard in detail. Many people say just add a pringles can to 802.11 to extend the range, but there are many other issues beyond range. 802.11 and 802.16 are designed for different purposes.

    Among other things, Mr. Marks described that 802.11's MAC uses CSMA/CA (carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance). The carrier sense means that it listens (or tries to listen) for other devic

  • Metropolitan Area Networks are already in use in the field. WAY out in the field - like Nome, Alaska. Check it out: www.nook.net [nook.net]

    -mazor

  • you know what would be very cool? just an idea, even if security (and a million other things) needs to be worked out... But make internet connection purely wireless for the end user in all parts of the world. Blanket the world in wireless access points, and make it accessible to anyone just by asking their gps coordinates or something like that. A vision for the future internet! would be very cool to have a fully connected world where wherever you were in the world you could just switch on and be able to

  • 802.11 (Score:2, Informative)

    by IAR80 ( 598046 )
    Even old 802.11 standard can reach 50km. There is no limitation of distance in the actual protocol. With high gain antenna, line of sight and enough power you can shoot much more. Actually there was a trial in Sweden using metorolagical baloons and they did more than 200km with 802.11b. The main concern is LOS blocking due to curvature of the Earth. If you want to shoot 60km and have one antenna at ground level, you need to have the other one at least 200m high. And this will aplly to 802.16 too.
  • As I see it, this is the beginning of something truly great. Wi-Fi in the home, around the block, in the coffee shop has been a truly nice thing. A convience that we all find ourselves saying "I wish more places had this (and I didn't have to pay an arm and a leg)".
    It won't be much longer before that is the case. All we need now in boston, is one or two major providers to come in and set up MAN AP's on the tallest buildings in town, alternatively several large towers within a few miles of the city.

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