IEEE Standards Association announces really long range Wi-Fi

Jul 30 2011
By Jonathan Spike

How many times have you wished for a little more distance for your Wi-Fi connection?  Maybe you need just another 15 feet to be able to work in the gazebo on the other side of the pool?

With this new Wi-Fi standard, you would be able to work in the next town.  You might be able to use it from several towns away.

Yep, this new Wi-Fi standard is 802.22.  It is designed to give you a fast 22 Mbps speed and a distance of 60 miles.  Yes, you read it right: 60 miles!

You probably will not be using it in your home network, as this specification is for the big boys.  The cellular and Wi-Fi providers are already licking their chops to get a piece of this technology.

The secret is in the available bandwidth.  It uses the space between the TV channels, commonly called “white space” to achieve the 22 Mbps speed and will have a stronger power than is used on conventional Wi-Fi.

You may soon see WRANs in your neighborhood and they are not birds.  They are Wireless Regional Area Networks.

That is impressive for both speed and distance.  Too bad you will not be able to use one of these on your home network.  You could still take advantage of it by running a VPN (Virtual Private Network) through the WRAN to your home network.

This technology could also be used to provide high-speed broadband services in rural areas.  A WRAN antenna in the center of town and the all the surrounding area for a radius of 60 miles will enjoy the benefits.

Smartphone users could also take advantage of the 802.22 technology to use that instead of using up their data plan traffic.

802.22 certainly looks like a good thing.

Sadly it’s likely to be some time before most of us can take advantage of this new technology but in the meantime you can check out the availability of internet service providers by area if you need a new provider.

 

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