Is 2 kilometers enough for your Wifi setup?

[mookydooky]

Apparently a company, Vivato, is currently working on a WiFi setup that can extend your access point for up to two kilometers. Not bad. I wonder if some of that distance can be traded for more bandwidth...

Article

[mrpcman]

...or if that's at a sacrafice of speed already. i hope that's full speed though. that could be a huge break through.

[drow_elf]

hehe i hope they work out some better encryption for those links... otherwise it wouldnt be that hard to "break in" and use open shares, steal bandwidth etc...

[mrpcman]

Originally posted by drow_elf
hehe i hope they work out some better encryption for those links... otherwise it wouldnt be that hard to "break in" and use open shares, steal bandwidth etc...

well, but maybe at that point we create an open network...in theory.

[drow_elf]

if that happens ill have to switch too a completely new and different OS that no one besides me has ever heard of... obscurity is the first step in security (man.... thats bad and i just made it up too.... that is soo bad.... someone delete this!)

[Áedán]

Muhuhuhuhuh. That's gonna cause CHAOS!

802.11b sits in the 2.4GHz ISM Band. This band is used for many many things. 802.11b, Bluetooth, Cordless phones, Microwaves, Video senders, Electronic news gathering, RFID, Lighting (Sulphur plasma lighting) , HomeRF, RLAN, garage door openers and much much more. Oh, and various military organisations use it from time to time. (Aircraft and missile telemetry!)

Bluetooth and a few others use frequency hopping, so it won't be much of a deal for them.

What Vivato have done is to couple a phase array antenna system with standard 802.11 Wifi stuff. Effectively what happens is that the phase array shapes the output into a narrow beam, the same way a dish would do. What's good about a phase array is the fact that you can control the phase elements, and hence control the beam shape(s) and direction(s).

In the UK, some of the amatuer radio operators have managed to get WiFi links operational over 20KM using a homebuilt antenna and a 60cm satellite dish.

AidanII

[Áedán]

Originally posted by drow_elf
if that happens ill have to switch too a completely new and different OS that no one besides me has ever heard of... obscurity is the first step in security (man.... thats bad and i just made it up too.... that is soo bad.... someone delete this!)

Do a search on "security through obscurity", and you'll find that many people have beaten you to that one already! BTW, security through obscurity doesn't work very well.

AidanII