There are some super-cool things happening in the world of wireless technology, and I thought some of you might like a breakdown of the areas that I think will pertain to the masses in the near future.
802.11n
If you haven’t heard of that wierd name before, especially the 802.11 part, don’t worry. It isn’t a big deal, all that stands for is the number assigned to the standard created by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). The “n” at the end just means the revision to the standard. So most wireless stuff right now is 802.11g or 802.11a. G and A are the same speed, they just use different frequencies to operate on, and 802.11g is backwards compatible with the 802.11b stuff, which is slower.
If reading up on that sort of thing interests you the wikipedia has a decent workup of all different kinds of 802.11 standards that are out there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11
The big thing to know about 802.11n is that it is going to be faster, a lot faster, like as much as 10 times faster than your current network. And it will go further, which is nice because it takes less money to get internet to more places. The other thing to know is that they are working on improving the “quality of service” of this technology over the old ones, so you can get real-time video and audio streams over wireless without a lot of garbage. You can already do this to some extent, but not if your network is busy. But that looks to change later this year, or early next year when they roll out the full 802.11n final standard and we see products based on it.
My personal advice. Don’t buy anything labeled “PRE-N” or “MIMO” because that stuff will probably not work with the new 802.11n and it is expensive. Save money now, buy something cheap that does 802.11g or 802.11b, and then when 802.11n comes out get that stuff. This will save money in the long run, and make sure that your neat wireless stuff talks to your friends laptop as well as yours for years to come.
WiMax
This is like cell phone coverage, only of the internet instead of voice. The key difference between this and the wireless networks you are used to is speed and distance. A single access point / base station for this kind of wireless can cover something like 30 km. It is slower though, and intended to be in the 550kb/s to 3ish mb/s speed range. They list something higher than that on some websites, but it realistically will fall in that range. It is slower because it is aimed at getting the last bit of the population, in the hard to reach places, online with broadband like speeds. It is comparable our cable modems and DSL are a lot slower than our wireless networks already, so it won’t be a big deal.
This standard has the potential to be the most interesting on the global social justice stage, and I’ll need to do just a little technical background to explain why.
With the internet there is an open standard for transferring information. This information is sent in what is called a packet. That packet contains a chunk of the information requested along with routing information, priority, and a bunch of other stuff. Cell phones use a similar idea, but are pretty much mostly designed for encoded voice signals.
But, the bandwith provided to internet-type devices can be for anything, and as we are seeing phone service is now being carried over the internet. And, not to far off is TV over the internet.
Also, WiMax antennas can relay signals to other WiMax antennas creating a mesh network without the need for digging up stuff to bury cables.
So, it stands to reason that if WiMax were to hit big, with the prescence of cheap of cell-phone-like Voice-over-IP devices, we could bypass many of the traditional communication infrastructures used in the US while building the infrastructures of developing worlds. No messy backwards compatibilities, no laying lots of wires underground, and cheap calls for everyone. (Like Skype, or other VOIP providers) And when people start using computers the keys are in place to get them on quickly in remote areas.
They are already saying this should improve adoption of broadband in the US rural areas, where it is hard to get DSL and cable modems. So I can’t imagine it not being useful for developing nations as well.
Anyway, that is enough of that, if you want to see more, follow the links below.
http://www.intel.com/netcomms/technologies/wimax/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimax
That is my little walk through the world of wireless computer stuff. Exciting times ahead I think in these areas.