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My main issue here is that each new wi-fi standard requires new hardware. I remember reading something within the past few years about revolutionary new wi-fi a

My main issue here is that each new wi-fi standard requires new hardware. I remember reading something within the past few years about revolutionary new wi-fi antennas that will be able to adapt to any frequency such that new hardware wouldn't be an issue. I wonder if anyone has seen anything similar?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jethro_tell 11y ago
I think it would have to do far more with the green board and not the antennas. Especially at the home owner router level your not going to put the effort into the back plain of the router. And while most of them aren't really general purpose computers in that, a good part of the functionality is going to be baked into the various chip hardwares on the board. One might be able upgrade the OS but changing the functionality of the radios probably totals the box. Plus, what would they sell you next year? To be sustainable, the company would have to be mostly a software company that people are willing to pay license or upgrade fees for increased functionality or performance. There may be a niche for that, but most people won't upgrade their router or CPE for free. At scale, I doubt that would pan out, especially with increased, upfront hardware cost.
colejohnson66 11y ago
GNU Radio?
godzillabrennus 11y ago
What do you expect from advanced radio equipment? Each new hard drive standard has required a faster motherboard to take advantage of it. WiFi standards are backwards compatible in the sense that they work with older hardware to send at the maximum speed that those radios were capable of transmitting.
- johnhenry 11y ago
  That's simply not true. Each standard doesn't require a faster motherboard, only some changes to code and possibly a different communication frequency. Changes to code do not require different hardware while changes to the communication frequency do. The crux of my initial comment is that it would be awesome if we could some how get around the last issue and not have to replace hardware in order to use a different frequency, which @walshemj points out is a physical impossibility, but I believe I read an article a while ago in which someone had gotten around this?
keeperofdakeys 11y ago
The antenna is part of it, but it is also the radio. A lot of the hard work of modulating the wifi signal is done in this hardware, and low-level firmware on the device. We do have Software Defined Radios, which practically allow you to tune to a much wider range of frequencies, and speak nearly any wireless protocol though.
walshemj 11y ago
That's not going to happen antenna design is restricted by the physical laws governing radio transmission - you wont be able to make a magic antenna that works across all wave lengths.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jethro_tell 11y ago

I think it would have to do far more with the green board and not the antennas. Especially at the home owner router level your not going to put the effort into the back plain of the router. And while most of them aren't really general purpose computers in that, a good part of the functionality is going to be baked into the various chip hardwares on the board. One might be able upgrade the OS but changing the functionality of the radios probably totals the box. Plus, what would they sell you next year? To be sustainable, the company would have to be mostly a software company that people are willing to pay license or upgrade fees for increased functionality or performance. There may be a niche for that, but most people won't upgrade their router or CPE for free. At scale, I doubt that would pan out, especially with increased, upfront hardware cost.

colejohnson66 11y ago

GNU Radio?

godzillabrennus 11y ago

What do you expect from advanced radio equipment? Each new hard drive standard has required a faster motherboard to take advantage of it. WiFi standards are backwards compatible in the sense that they work with older hardware to send at the maximum speed that those radios were capable of transmitting.

johnhenry 11y ago
That's simply not true. Each standard doesn't require a faster motherboard, only some changes to code and possibly a different communication frequency. Changes to code do not require different hardware while changes to the communication frequency do. The crux of my initial comment is that it would be awesome if we could some how get around the last issue and not have to replace hardware in order to use a different frequency, which @walshemj points out is a physical impossibility, but I believe I read an article a while ago in which someone had gotten around this?

keeperofdakeys 11y ago

The antenna is part of it, but it is also the radio. A lot of the hard work of modulating the wifi signal is done in this hardware, and low-level firmware on the device. We do have Software Defined Radios, which practically allow you to tune to a much wider range of frequencies, and speak nearly any wireless protocol though.

walshemj 11y ago

That's not going to happen antenna design is restricted by the physical laws governing radio transmission - you wont be able to make a magic antenna that works across all wave lengths.