Poughkeepsie, NY -- More on Wireless for Everyone

From Combjelly:

"Ed Schafer, the former governor of North Dakota, may have a plan which could help inexpensively blanket sparse states with cellular service:"

For cell phone, this makes good sense. Cell phone range is enough to make it feasible, and it certainly solves the tree problem in rural areas.

For WiFi, they'd have to fly pretty low. Present clear air range is about 150 meters, and that only if the cards are pushing their max. of 100mw, many available cards are down at 30 or less. So cut that range in half. In comparison, a cell phone can push 3 watts. It would be fairly easy to fix, just get Congress to allow WiFi to use a higher wattage, either on the same band or a new one. Using the same band would mean that only a new amplifier, say from a cell phone, is needed and that keeps costs down. To reduce interference, make a rooftop box with a directional antenna and simplified tracking. That way multiple balloons with multiple access points can be used to keep the congestion down. Do a mass buy and sell at or near cost, and that would mean people could get free access for an upfront cost of under $100. For those who can't afford that, encourage groups to sponsor access.

The key is being able to transmit a lot more power, or a little more power with a directional antenna and tracking. Preferably both.

Edit: it occurs to me that 802.11a might be better than 802.11b/g. 802.11a operates on the 5GHz band instead of the 2.4GHz band like 802.11b/g, cell phones, portable phones, microwaves...

802.11a has some drawbacks, wall penetration is worse and, relatedly, it reflects more so multipath distortion(signals reflecting from various surfaces, adding to noise) is a greater problem. But with a roof mounted system that basically points up, this is less of a problem. And it allows for higher bandwidth at greater distances with lower power. More than 100mw would still be needed, but not as much. The reason why I, and others, obsesses over the transmitted power is that the more power, the greater distance that it interferes with other uses. Which is why I toy with the idea of directional antennas. They restrict the directions the radio waves go in and reduces the power required to cover certain distances.

I think it's a given that balloons aren't the solution to deliver a signal based on the 802.11x standards, but I guess if cell phone service could somehow make do, this could work. Intriguing, anyway.

posted by jbrzoska @ 6:40 PM Trackback Link