CORR,PROX etc."WEB EXCLUSIVE © 2004 Newsweek Wi-Fi"
Wi-Fi goes by many names--802.11, AirPort, wireless LAN and Wi-Fi itself.
By Glenn Derene
Newsweek
There are invisible forces at work, ones that will change your life dramatically in coming years--assuming they haven't begun to already. These forces traverse the airwaves, carrying essential business information, e-mails, voice data, spam, and entertainment of all sorts, including, of course, megabyte after megabyte of the infamous Paris Hilton video.
If you haven't already guessed, we're talking about wireless. In the past few years, this technology has found its way into almost every type of personal electronic device, from PCs to PDAs, garnering lots of hype in the process. But the excitement surrounding wireless isn't unfounded. Wireless data networking is still in its infancy, and many of the technologies that are just coming out of the research stage could fundamentally change the way information travels around the globe. Will it affect you directly? You bet. But wireless is such a welter of new names and acronyms, it's sometimes hard to tell the players without a program. To help, we've put together a little primer on what's out there now--and what's coming--in wireless.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi goes by many names--802.11, AirPort, wireless LAN and Wi-Fi itself.Any of these variations work by using a short-to-medium range high-bandwidth radio transceiver to tap into networks at speeds of 11 mbps (million bits per second) to more than 100 mbps, up to 350 feet from a base station. (That's fast: by contrast, a dial-up Internet connection is only 56 thousand bits per second). Today, the Wi-Fi cards most commonly found in laptops have the specifications 802.11a, b, and g. These three standards tap into different frequencies and allow for varying bandwidths; most of the newest cards are able to work with multiple standards.
There are ambitious plans for Wi-Fi technology. Look for cell phones sporting new 802.11 software standards (designated by letters e, h, and i) to hit the market in the next year or two, allowing people to tap into local area networks (LANs) for high-speed Internet surfing and voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) telephone calls. Also, expect Wi-Fi to hit the home entertainment market soon, connecting DVD players, stereos, TVs, computers, TiVos, and cable boxes into one contiguous home entertainment extravaganza. Sharp already sells a portable television monitor you can carry anywhere in the house and, via Wi-Fi, pick up signals from your cable system or DVD player.....
Somewhere on the way to third-generation networks, many GSM carriers adopted 2.5G, which can transfer data at speeds anywhere from about 50 kbps to 130 kbps. The eventual standard for GSM (which should begin rollout towards the end of this year) is called W-CDMA, and should be much faster, with rates of around 2 megabits per second......
The Next Big Thing
It's one thing to do away with the data cables in your home, but it's quite another thing altogether to do away with the cables coming into your home. That's precisely the premise behind WiMAX technology (also known as 802.16), which will hit the market in 2005 and will function as a sort of long-range Wi-Fi connection, or, more importantly, a wireless alternative to cable modems and DSL. WiMAX can offer wireless connectivity at up to 30 miles from an antenna at speeds of up to 75 mbps (maximum bandwidth is achieved at under 5 miles). For perspective, cable modems bring in data at just over 1 mbps.
Initially, look for WiMAX to offer "last mile" services to areas where cable and phone companies don't offer broadband Internet connections--imagine a fixed antenna on the outside of your house picking up the WiMAX signal, while a conventional Wi-Fi network distributes it throughout your home. Although WiMAX will primarily be used for broadband Internet access, it could eventually deliver digital TV as well. Eventually, expect to see cheap WiMAX cards for laptops that allow high-speed wireless broadband almost anywhere......
If you think you've finally caught the wave (or wavelength) of the future by now, think again. Another wireless standard, 802.20, is also in development. It promises all the benefits of WiMAX 802.16, but will be optimized for high-speed mobility--just in case you need broadband wireless access while traveling on a bullet train at 150 miles per hour.
If the various forms of WiMAX perform as promised, they may well make many of the world's cellular companies look back a bit ruefully at their multi-billion dollar investments in 3G. But they will also finally deliver truly ubiquitous Internet access, always on, wherever you go-and that will change the nature of the Web in ways we likely can't even now imagine.
© 2004 Newsweek |
