Comments on: Super Wi-Fi: Coming Soon to Airwaves Near You

By: Koi Pond

Koi Pond — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:18:34 +0000

I wish we had that in the United States

By: Wanda Ballentine

Wanda Ballentine — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 14:53:09 +0000

I suggest that everyone read the latest Bio-Initiative Report on the health threats of electromagnetic frequencies written by 14 international scientists who regularly review the research and literature. http://www.bioinitiative.org/ there is a $2.00 charge to download the report. The Summary is now 18 pages long as compared to the previous seven.

[This comment was truncated for being quoted info from another source.]

By: Amos Zeeberg (Discover Web Editor)

Amos Zeeberg (Discover Web Editor) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 23:48:07 +0000

@Terry: You're right of course that transmitter power is an important part of this. As far as I know, the FCC hasn't yet made public the power restrictions of Super Wifi, so it's hard to weigh how heavily that factors in. But note that received signal power does vary with frequency: lower-frequency signals should be received with higher power because of the lower free-space path loss, which is proportional to the square of the frequency. So a 5GHz WiFi signal suffers 10K times more path loss than a 50MHz Super WiFi signal. I'm not sure off the top of my head what that means for the bit rate of the signal, but the miles instead of meters idea does come from the FCC; presumably they've done the math to back that up.

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 23:09:42 +0000

One thing that has mitigated the widespread use of insecure WiFi nets is their short range. If this is marketed as a consumer grade technology then there could be security repercussions. Who needs to war drive when the radiated signal has an effective range of several miles?

Of course this problem can be fixed up if the WAP vendors make their configuration systems both mandatory and easy to use. Nor is the current security dynamic really acceptable either. WEP needs to be deprecated (badly).

By: TerryS.

TerryS. — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:38:55 +0000

Wait a moment! Discover magazine quoting Gizmodo about radio wave propagation. Such as “Super Wi-Fi would be able to travel for several miles because of that lower frequency.”

Whoa! Is this new physics? An alternate universe? Have we taken transmitter power totally out of the equation?

I’m disappointed Dicover.

By: Ali Onder

Ali Onder — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:50:11 +0000

700 mhz is much more than enough to carry the so called “high speed internet” of todays standards

By: Andrew Moseman

Andrew Moseman — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 01:08:47 +0000

@Rhacodactylus There is the problem of congestion—some people quoted in stories wonder whether it will work, say, here in New York, where there’s an overabundance of TV stations and smaller gaps in between.

By: ChH

ChH — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:19:54 +0000

Is that even going to count as “high speed” internet?
Lower carrier frequencies mean lower bandwidth, which means less bits per second.

By: Rhacodactylus

Rhacodactylus — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 23:40:22 +0000

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I could have sworn there was some issue with white space since it couldn’t be depended upon to be open in all areas . . . wish I could remember the specifics.