4 ms·
Since when is WIFI considered low tech? I think these definitions need a bit of a rehaul, flying baloons are much more low tech then WiFi antenna IMO.
by Illniyar 11y ago
Since when is WIFI considered low tech?
I think these definitions need a bit of a rehaul, flying baloons are much more low tech then WiFi antenna IMO.
- tonylemesmer 11y agowhat about flying balloons with wifi antennae - Seen a working version yet?
- Natanael_L 11y agoMore like low-resource networks, or maybe hobby-grade infrastructure?
- dfox 11y agoThese networks tend to be mostly WiFi based because the hardware is cheap enough that homegrown "low-tech" alternatives (like FSO or custom radio protocols) are more expensive. I remember that ~15 years ago building these sort of networks involved various experiments with hooking up various home-grown radio modems or gutted laser pointers to serial ports, but today the technology of choice is either WiFi or commercial microwave PTP links operating in unlicensed spectrum (which are order of magnitude more expensive than WiFi, but have significantly better performance, also unlicensed spectrum usable for such links is not available in every country).
- snerbles 11y agoRONJA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA) is one such homebrew free-space optical (FSO) link.
- kevinchen 11y agoPerhaps "low-cost" is a better adjective. Wi-Fi hardware and knowledge are ubiquitous — the article says the buying Wi-Fi hardware is cheaper than rolling your own. Also, I'd imagine if the people setting up the network leave, others will have an easier time maintaining if the network uses a very popular link layer.