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It's a shame the Wi-Fi Alliance is showing no interest in long-range mesh capabilities for its Wi-Fi standards. The mesh-like standards it does have currently

by mtgx 9y ago

It's a shame the Wi-Fi Alliance is showing no interest in long-range mesh capabilities for its Wi-Fi standards. The mesh-like standards it does have currently are mainly focused on home automation, and they only cared about developing those because Bluetooth was becoming the de-factor standard for IoT, and now 6LoWPAN seems to be taking over. 802.11ax promised 5x the range of 802.11n in theory, but implementers will go up to 2x, at most, likely preferring to focus on increased performance/bandwidth instead. I think it would be really cool if we could have a Wi-Fi standard that would go through buildings over 1 mile even at 1Mbps speeds. And I think we now have the technology and know-how for how to deal with interference from similar Wi-Fi emitters. It would be nice if something like this was made by the Wi-Fi Alliance because then we could all have that capability in our phones within 5 years after release. Think how much that would help in cases of disaster: earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, wars, and so on.

blueprint 9y ago
> Think how much that would help in cases of disaster: earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, wars, and so on. Don't forget censorship… :)
superkuh 9y ago
That's because long distance at UHF and up requires clear line of sight. And that requires at least one end of your setup being up very high on towers or buildings. Height is the reason the cell phone network works. And height is the reason mesh networks don't. Height costs money.
ac29 9y ago
>long-range mesh capabilities for its Wi-Fi standards >go through buildings over 1 mile even at 1Mbps speeds That sounds like a nightmare. WiFi is already nearly unusuable in high density situations. A recent trip to help a friend living in a medium density part of a large city showed ~100 access points, using the lousy WiFi antenna on my smartphone. Even every single 5GHz channel (which really doesnt travel well through objects) was taken, usually twice or more, including all the DFS channels. Mind you, this was inside. I cant begin to imagine how unusable WiFi (and its related unlicenced spectrum) would become if had 5x the range. Even in low-density suburban areas, 2.4GHz is crowded to the point of degraded performance (although 5GHz is pretty clear for now).

by mtgx 9y ago

blueprint 9y ago

> Think how much that would help in cases of disaster: earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, wars, and so on. Don't forget censorship… :)

superkuh 9y ago

That's because long distance at UHF and up requires clear line of sight. And that requires at least one end of your setup being up very high on towers or buildings. Height is the reason the cell phone network works. And height is the reason mesh networks don't. Height costs money.

ac29 9y ago

>long-range mesh capabilities for its Wi-Fi standards >go through buildings over 1 mile even at 1Mbps speeds That sounds like a nightmare. WiFi is already nearly unusuable in high density situations. A recent trip to help a friend living in a medium density part of a large city showed ~100 access points, using the lousy WiFi antenna on my smartphone. Even every single 5GHz channel (which really doesnt travel well through objects) was taken, usually twice or more, including all the DFS channels. Mind you, this was inside. I cant begin to imagine how unusable WiFi (and its related unlicenced spectrum) would become if had 5x the range. Even in low-density suburban areas, 2.4GHz is crowded to the point of degraded performance (although 5GHz is pretty clear for now).