5 ms·

> Radios are scarce, but the range and ability to produce electromagnetic waves at certain frequencies is not scarce with said radio. I work in the wireless ne

by azernik 14y ago

> Radios are scarce, but the range and ability to produce electromagnetic waves at certain frequencies is not scarce with said radio. I work in the wireless networking field, and my and my coworkers' experience is actually the complete opposite in high-density environments: there is an abundance of radios, and a scarcity of frequency. Which, BTW, is one of the reasons wired networking consistently outperforms wireless - you have one and only one transmitter (in a full-duplex connection) on a given medium.

zanny 14y ago
The peak throughput in any region of space in terms of wave density is limited, but one of the reasons your coworkers are probably experiencing such scarcity is due to artificial constraints on the market. Frequency would be scarce in highly concentrated areas in an open-frequency region, but it would be less so than if you artificially restricted access. What would naturally follow is that the demand would distribute itself (within the realm of possibility, ultra low and high frequencies have either range or bandwidth disadvantages that make them ill suited for, say, digital packet signaling). I also wonder what kind of innovation you might see in an open band environment in terms of wifi - if you weren't limited to the few bands of 802.11, maybe routers would pop up that dynamically enable multiple transmitters (like how a modern router would have multiple antennas to transmit in parallel, maybe you would see many-hundred low power antenna radios to interface with devices over the largest clear possible frequency range available?)
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  How exactly to you propose affordable consumer hardware is going to accommodate hundreds of radios covering the entire range of useful spectrum?
  - zanny 14y ago
    They won't have to. The market would naturally have big players find it in their best interest to organize spectrum interference around their usage, and would avoid ranges used by other big consistent players in a region. The average consumer should barely see any change, besides variable range on their devices as other hardware comes up and goes down in a frequency band they use. But for use cases that require consistent signaling, or really high throughput, enabling radios that utilize vast swaths of frequencies in parallel can increase the throughput.

by azernik 14y ago

zanny 14y ago

The peak throughput in any region of space in terms of wave density is limited, but one of the reasons your coworkers are probably experiencing such scarcity is due to artificial constraints on the market. Frequency would be scarce in highly concentrated areas in an open-frequency region, but it would be less so than if you artificially restricted access. What would naturally follow is that the demand would distribute itself (within the realm of possibility, ultra low and high frequencies have either range or bandwidth disadvantages that make them ill suited for, say, digital packet signaling). I also wonder what kind of innovation you might see in an open band environment in terms of wifi - if you weren't limited to the few bands of 802.11, maybe routers would pop up that dynamically enable multiple transmitters (like how a modern router would have multiple antennas to transmit in parallel, maybe you would see many-hundred low power antenna radios to interface with devices over the largest clear possible frequency range available?)

sliverstorm 14y ago
How exactly to you propose affordable consumer hardware is going to accommodate hundreds of radios covering the entire range of useful spectrum?
- zanny 14y ago
  They won't have to. The market would naturally have big players find it in their best interest to organize spectrum interference around their usage, and would avoid ranges used by other big consistent players in a region. The average consumer should barely see any change, besides variable range on their devices as other hardware comes up and goes down in a frequency band they use. But for use cases that require consistent signaling, or really high throughput, enabling radios that utilize vast swaths of frequencies in parallel can increase the throughput.