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Garage Tinkerers Claim Wireless Last-Mile Solution 259

Posted by timothy from the believe-when-it's-under-the-tree dept.
BrianWCarver writes: "The NYTimes is reporting that two guys in their garage have designed a low-cost wireless broadband solution that can transmit up to 20 miles. (A previous story described a 7km achievement in Australia.) Their company is called Etherlinx and they use the Wi-Fi 802.11b standard in a repeater antenna that people can attach to the outside of their homes. The technology, which apparently costs under $100, has been operating in a small for-pay trial in Oakland, CA for a year. Is this a solution to the 'last-mile' problem, hope for rural areas, and the death of cable/DSL? Read and be the judge."
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Garage Tinkerers Claim Wireless Last-Mile Solution More

Garage Tinkerers Claim Wireless Last-Mile Solution

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  • So the real questions now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by LawGeek ( 104616 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:15AM (#3672291)
    How many nodes can you stuff on a single broadband account, and how many favors can you think for your neighbors to do for you, anyway?
  • I don't think I will be ready to trade in my dsl till they show how fast these puppys can connect at.

  • truly rural needs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:19AM (#3672315) Homepage
    I have several friends from the upper midwest (North Dakota and South Dakota). While dialup is available everywhere and DSL within 18K - 30K feet from small towns, there really is no broadband solution for the fairly large number of homes located 15 - 30 miles from a town with any services. Some areas are more than 50 miles from anything modern. Montana and Wyoming are even worse.

    What would be *really* helpful would be some solar+battery powered WiFi repeaters located thruout the countryside (perhaps bolted on the side of analog cell towers?) to serve these areas.
    • DSL available in small towns? Maybe in the midwest.

      I live in Burlington, NJ. It's technically a city, but really more of an overgrown town in the middle of the Philadelphia suburbs. We'll be getting DSL service about the same time hell freezes over.

    • Re:truly rural needs (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is in many ways similair to the advent of telephones nearly a century ago. Originally AT&T was only intrested in selling telephones and the service to buisnesses located in urban areas. It was independent companies which moved to connect rural homes, seeing that a housewife stuck on a farm might be willing to pay for the ability to talk with the neighbors without a long walk.

      Competition from these rural carriers is one of the reaons AT&T to really pushed into uniform residential service accross the entire country.
    • 15-30 miles?
      Hell, I'm in a major metropolitan area and can't get DSL. What really sucks is there is a Bellsouth building 2 blocks from my house.

      Wonder what they'd say if I showed up there office with the end of a long cable and asked if I could plug it in??
    • If you place repeaters everywhere to form a virtual circuit, you run into bandwidth problems with lots of users in said 15-30 mile stretch, because they would share the same "pipe" (as it were). Of course, it would still beat out dialup.

      • Re:truly rural needs (Score:3, Interesting)

        by saridder ( 103936 )
        At least with 802.11g coming out, the bw will jump to 54 MB (A's speed), be backwards compatable with B clients and use B's range and frequency.
      • That wouldn't be a big problem. We are talking about a rural area, with an extremely low population density. I doubt that there would be more than a few households in said 15-30 mile stretch where there would be an interest in broadband access.
    • I'm in Fargo, grew up in Bismarck. This kind of stuff would be perfect up here. We actually can get wireless at T1 speeds for fairly cheap, around 50 bucks a month. It is so flat that there are no obstacles to worry about.

      I work for a dial-up company now and most of our customers are actually from out of the towns, within local calling range. We tried wireless but it was just too unreliable.
      • If wireless was too unreliable, you had a poor implementation of it. I have a t1 quality wireless connection to my office, completely flawless even in crazy thunderstorms with lots of lightning. Airband must have spent some serious cash for their hardware.

      • Another Nodak Here (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:04PM (#3673467)
        As you know from growing up in Bismarck, not all of North Dakota is either flat or as populous as the Fargo area, which isn't saying much. I'm presently 17 miles from Watford City, ND, and only have line of sight to any part of said town because I'm 100ft of elevation higher and most of the intervening hills are lower than that. I've been thinking about some kind of wireless solution for a while, as it is possible in Watford to get T1 and now, thanks to a spinoff by 3 companies (one in Watford, one in Dickinson, and one in Bismarck), DSL. The service really sucks, even within the city limits, but unreliable 512k is still better than the 24k that my phone line is letting me get today (I got about 50k once), which isn't reliable anyhow as it's also through the same ISP as the DSL.

        There is an initiative to deliver wireless to all of North Dakota's rural areas, not just the 50% of our population that lives between I-29 and the Red River (of the North, for those of you Suthroners reading), but it's a long ways off and some of the people in charge aren't ambitious enough to pull it off.

        Someone else mentioned the possibility of putting repeaters or transmitters on the cell phone antennas across the countryside. That would work great, IF said cell phone antennas were even capable with their much-greater-than-wireless-networking range of covering the entire state, but they're not. With a high-power bag phone, on a clear night, I can get enough 'service' to make a call, maybe understand the incoming side of it, etc. The nearest digital tower is circa 60 miles from me, in Williston, and is so weak that digital service doesn't become available until you come over Indian Hill about 10 miles from Williston. Granted that service in Minot, Grand Forks, Fargo, and Bismarck (and marginally so, Dickinson) is better, but there are still a lot of people, the real heart of North Dakota, that aren't included among those that live in our 'cities'.

        There needs to be a statewide solution, and we've not had much luck finding one yet. Any ideas?
        • There needs to be a statewide solution, and we've not had much luck finding one yet. Any ideas?

          You may want to email Colin Anderson (colin at beyondboxes dot com), he's my former roommate and seems to be on top of many ND broadband deployments. At one point he became so fed up that he had a T1 installed to his rural farmhouse for several different projects!

          I'm going to zip him an email too, letting him know about this thread. Not sure what he's up to these days, but it's worth a shot.
        • Ya, that is a problem in the western half of the state, some guys in Bismarck tried to get wireless going, they should of just put all the transmitters on the water towers, I don't think they could pull if off though, everyone their has DSL and Cable or Dial-up through BTI

          I have been thinking about the statewide problem. I remember when Schafer said he was going to run t1's to every school in the state and spend a few million doing it. I thought, ok, way too expensive to lay cable to every small town in the state, there has go to be a better way. So you either use wireless or existing cables in the ground. Every small town obviously has a phone line and a power line running to it. Phone line is out, dsl is way to hard to get to everyone so that leaves powerline networking. I don't know too much about it but I hear it is offered all over. That would seem to make sense to me. Everyone already has the line running right into their house and all you would have to do is setup switches at the junction boxes from what I understand, teaching farmers how to use computers is a whole nother problem.

          The sad part is places like ND, SD, MT, etc.. We are just too spread out, and to be honest with you 50 years from now most of the towns 500 will be gone. The people left could just get satelite internet. The Idea with the cell towers is pretty good though, those are everywhere around us.

          You are up in Watford? Good deer hunting, I was offered a contract job up by there one time, in Williston I think. Installing about 40 pc's for a car dealership and setting up a simple little network for them, They only wanted to pay me $8 an hour and give me 3 hours driving time total to go from Bismarck up there. I told them to shove it. Some east coast company.
        • Ya know, after thinking about this more I started to wonder if the DEMAND is even out there for these fast connections. Sure the schools want them but does anyone else? I know ALOT of farmers out there and not one of them has ever said that they wanted a better internet connection. Even people in the small towns that I have met don't want them. Maybe a few kids here and there and the town GEEK, but most people in towns I have been to don't seem to be making it a priority. Seems more like a political thing. Bring North Dakota into the 21st century type deal. I mean almost everyone can get Dial-up out there can't they? You keep hearing about all these companies trying to roll out cable and dsl that are going broke, and that is in cities, there is no way they are going to make it in the rural areas.
          I don't know. North Dakota is destined to fall off the map anyway. We aren't even on it for most people in the US
          • It's a chicken-and-the-egg problem. Watford's economic development department has been continually trying to get tech firms to move in. There is a geography company that did actually set up shop, and there was a programming firm that was going to come in (I even went to the job fair they hosted here and all that; covered in mud and wet from snow from being out 4-wheeling with the '76 IHC Scout, of course ;-D), but it seems the main problem is getting people to move in. We lack a few things that you and I real people require: entertainment. Yep, that's a few things. At least a movie theater and high-speed Internet. But keep in mind that the people who'd want to live here (me, for example) want to live here due in part to the isolation the country affords one, so they want to live outside of town. Figure that most of them will be 5-10 miles out. It's that 'doughnut' that broadband would have to cover, and then the geek infrastructure would be present and the firms could move in, thus creating the missing demand. Chicken and the egg.

            Oh yeah, and we're working on the movie theater dilemma (we had one long ago, but it's been closed for nearly 20 years). We're looking at setting up a digital (Lucas-friendly) theater in the near future, probably 2 screens.

            As to falling off the map, we're dangerously close as it is. Letterman had an electoral voting map, just showing each state in red, blue, or green, during the Bush/Gore election. He explained that red states' votes went to Bush, blue states' for Gore, and the states colored in green became Canadian. >8^)

    • I'm rural now (4 months now) and I'm just 8 miles from Purdue University. There will NEVER be DSL where I am now, NEVER be cable. There is no broadband option even this close to a major university like Purdue.


      My ONLY hope is forthcoming...Purdue is in the process of building a campus-wide wireless network. With any luck, with my 30+ dB directional antenna I will be able to pull a signal from the campus when they finish late this year and do some form of broadband that way...incidently, are there any electrical engineers around willing to put up simple schematics for a 2.4-2.5 GHz amplifier design that could be built with RadioShack parts? I have in mind making an amp that has switchable amplification for 1 W, 2 W, 5 W, and 10 W amp (yeah, I know the technical rules concerning power output, etc, WRT WiFi/802.11b but I don't care right now...I just want the designs to build from).


      How about posting such a design on a website? Pleeeeze? I could probably pull in a connection with such an amp combined with my directional...

      • Not at 2GHz. But a modular design with different components in the grunt stage (ie `switch' with an SMD iron). Also, a 10W 2GHz-capable RF power transistor is going to run you a little, so don't blow the sucker up! If you're throwing that many watts, have you considered a phased array of Milo tins? You could probably get near 40dB...

        We have 35km to cover, so will probably need carefully-adjusted tins at both ends or a relay hop.

  • The Article (no free req req'd ;-) (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:21AM (#3672322)
    2 Tinkerers Say They've Found a Cheap Way to Broadband

    By JOHN MARKOFF

    UPERTINO, Calif., June 7 -- Anyone looking for the next big thing in Silicon Valley should stop here at Layne Holt's garage.

    Mr. Holt and his business partner, John Furrier, both software engineers, have started a company with a shoestring budget and an ambitious target: the cable and phone companies that currently hold a near-monopoly on high-speed access for the "last mile" between the Internet and the home.

    At the core of their plan is the inexpensive wireless data standard known as Wi-Fi or 802.11b, which is already shaking up the communications industry, threatening to undermine the business plans of cellular phone companies by offering a much cheaper method for mobile access to the Internet.

    The pair's company, known as Etherlinx, has taken the 802.11b standard and used it to build a system that can transmit Internet data up to 20 miles at high speeds -- enough to blanket entire urban regions and make cable or D.S.L. connections obsolete.

    Their secret weapon is a technology known as a "software-designed radio," which has permitted them to create an inexpensive repeater antenna that can be attached to the outside of a customer's home. The device, which the Etherlinx executives said they believe can be built in quantity for less than $150 each, would communicate with a central antenna and then convert the signals into the industry-standard Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, signal for reception inside the home.

    Because of the staggering costs of wiring the nation's homes for high-speed networking, only 7 percent, or 7.5 million homes, now have high-speed Internet access, according to a February report from the Federal Communications Commission.

    The two Etherlinx executives say they have a religious fervor to change that by making broadband available widely and cheaply.

    "We're bandwidth junkies, and I can't imagine a world in which people don't have broadband," Mr. Furrier said. "That's our mission."

    Without venture capital backing, in a garage just six blocks from the garage where Steven P. Jobs and Stephen Wozniak launched Apple Computer [slashdot.org] 26 years ago, Mr. Holt is making his clever and inexpensive radio repeater by modifying inexpensive Wi-Fi cards, the circuitry that sends and receives the signals.

    Although he has partially broken with the Wi-Fi standard, he argues he is doing just what the unlicensed radio spectrum was originally set aside to encourage -- innovative wireless network designs.

    Mr. Holt, a 54-year-old software designer and engineer who began his career at the Lockheed Corporation in Sunnyvale, Calif., replaces the software that supports the Wi-Fi 802.11b standard with his own code, thereby dramatically extending the range of the cheap, mass-produced hardware. Each repeater contains two cards -- one that Mr. Holt has enhanced and another that is able to speak the 802.11b standard to a home computer.

    Today, while most of the Wi-Fi industry is working on a more complex technology known as "mesh routing," which involves lashing together hundreds or even thousands of short-range transceivers, the Etherlinx developers believe they have found a crude, cost-effective approach that is capable of leapfrogging the last-mile problem.

    "A French engineer would say this isn't the most elegant solution," Mr. Furrier said, "but we didn't care about that. We took advantage of these cheap commodity chips and we just wanted to make it work."

    In doing so, they say they believe they not only will be able to skate around the cable and phone companies but dodge the growing industry fears of congestion in the unlicensed Wi-Fi radio band, which is also supporting competing uses such as Bluetooth, an alternative, short-range wireless standard, as well as some wireless telephones.

    "The Wi-Fi industry is heading for a train wreck," Mr. Furrier said.

    The Etherlinx technology has been operating in a small for-pay trial in Oakland, Calif., for a year. The company began trials here last month using an antenna atop a high-rise building in neighboring Campbell, Calif., where the company has its corporate offices.

    Etherlinx is already beginning to attract serious attention from both government officials who are interested in last-mile solutions and corporate executives who believe the lack of high-speed Internet connections is the biggest obstacle to growth in the computer industry.

    "We have a huge incentive to see the last mile open up," said Graham Wallace, chief executive of Cable and Wireless P.L.C. [slashdot.org], one of the world's largest Internet backbone companies.

    To attract industry attention, Etherlinx cobbled together a demonstration antenna on the back of a Jeep Cherokee and took it to an industry conference in Southern California last month. Parked in front of the conference hotel, the founders were able to show Intel's [slashdot.org] chief executive, Craig R. Barrett, that their technology was capable of offering Internet access to the entire hotel as well as to the homes on a ridge behind the conference center.

    "I don't think there is a method that has emerged yet as a winner," said Leslie Vadasz, a veteran Intel executive who heads the company's venture arm, "but we are talking to these guys. What they have done is a very smart way of reusing engineering that has been done for other purposes."

    Etherlinx began the for-pay trial in Oakland last year after the company failed to get venture capital in Silicon Valley. The company is now selling Internet service commercially to about a dozen customers.

    "The V.C.'s are licking their wounds and they don't believe us," said Mr. Furrier, a 36-year-old networking engineer. "That's why we have taken a go-to-market approach."

    So far, the company has been run on about $200,000 in private investment -- far less than the tens of millions of dollars that have been poured into other Wi-Fi startups.

    Etherlinx is not the only company taking new approaches to sending wireless data over longer distances in the unlicensed portion of the radio spectrum. The communications and computer industry is now at work on a second-generation standard known as 802.16, which is intended to address longer-distance communications challenges.

    The latest efforts follow the collapse of an earlier attempt to establish a commercial wireless industry based on line-of-sight technology known as the Multipoint Microwave Distribution System, or M.M.D.S. Giant companies like A T & T, Sprint [slashdot.org] and WorldCom [slashdot.org] and startups like Winstar and Teligent all developed M.M.D.S. service, but they have either halted development on their systems or declared bankruptcy.

    Industry experts said the M.M.D.S. technology failed in part because it required the receiver to be within sight of the transmitter, but also because it required expensive installation and a huge upfront investment to license the spectrum from the government.

    "The cost of the license for the spectrum killed them," Mr. Holt said.

    Etherlinx is by no means alone in its approach.

    Several other companies are also beginning to explore alternatives not requiring line-of-sight that they believe will be more resistant to interference and will be easy for customers to install without expensive on-site help.

    Nokia [slashdot.org] has a research group in Silicon Valley that has been trying to develop such technologies, and Iospan Wireless Inc. of San Jose, Calif., and Navini Networks in Richardson, Tex., are selling products that are along the lines of the Etherlinx approach.

    However, Mr. Furrier said he hoped that speed would outweigh size or capital in determining the success of a business in the market. In addition to the company's Oakland trial, Etherlinx is planning to offer commercial service in Campbell, which is not currently served with D.S.L., and in wealthy surrounding suburbs such as Los Gatos and Saratoga.

    He argues that the absence of venture funding has actually been an advantage for his company.

    "What we've hit on is a low-cost design point and used our fast design to get to market first," he said.

    • What's with the French Engineers? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      From the article: "A French engineer would say this isn't the most elegant solution," Mr. Furrier said, "but we didn't care about that. We took advantage of these cheap commodity chips and we just wanted to make it work."

      Since when was French Engineering the best? The Eiffel tower is full of holes, they gave the Statue of Liberty to New Your and it's falling apart, they can't even put up a security fence to keep people out of the channel tunnel!

      I say "A French engineer would be too busy drinking wine, making love to his mistress and kissing his male work colleagues (possibly at the same time) to even get round to thinking about this device, but we got it working. Now we're done, pass the Buckfast, and does anyone fancy a quick snog?"

  • Speed... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Kernel Corndog ( 155153 )
    Well I know the theoretical speed is published in the standard... (and I've conveniently forgotten that too) But are there any realistic published speeds? What about speed vs. distance degredation? And speed vs. subscribers in 20 mile radius ...etc????

    • Re:Speed... (Score:3, Informative)

      by squison ( 546401 )
      This is from etherlinx.com: "We have operationally "lit up" the South Bay and Oakland areas with 2MB Ethernet " If they're getting 2MB in their test, I'm guessing a full fledged service can do even more than that.

  • Great (Score:2, Informative)

    by GMontag ( 42283 )
    The linked site [etherlinx.com] leads with a story by the infamous John Markoff [atomz.com]. Hopefully this story has some facts in it.
  • What about 'em? Isn't that the more low-cost alternative for broadband access in rural areas? But I have to clue about bandwith and pi(iiiiiiiiiiiii)ng.
    So they've been testing it for a year? How come in our dot-com-future that this took so long to hit the streets (or better the rural farmways)?

    • Re:Satellites? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by praedor ( 218403 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:45AM (#3672424) Homepage

      Satellites SUCK. For broadband, they are the only option I have besides dialup so I am sticking with dialup. Satellites are EXPENSIVE. To get more than 3 TV channels, I've had to go satellite TV. That costs ~$40/month and isn't worth it so it turns out. 155 channels and STILL nothing on worth watching (all the history channel ever shows is WWII crap over and over and over...but that's another story). Anyway, I am already shelling out ~$40/month on sat-TV. For sat-internet, it costs ~$70/month! Bullsh*t I'll EVER pay that much for high-latency, sub-DSL quality internet connectivity. If you have to choose between satellite or dialup, as I do, it is better to stick with dialup. Really.

      • Satellites SUCK

        Satellites are great for one-way transmissions (TV, GPS, etc.) but, yes, they royally suck for anything with real-time two-way requirements (phone calls, TCP, etc.). Ever make an international call across a satellite link? These days, you'd have to call somewhere in Africa, a remote part of Asia, or an isolated island, but if you ever get one of these links, you'll know it - there's such a delay that the conversation gets all messed up with people talking through each other.

        The only solution would be to fill the skies with enough satellites so that the signal didn't have to travel thousands of miles to reach one.

        You raise money for that; I'll be here wiring at ground level.

    • Low-cost for consumers, possibly, but do you have any idea how much a satellite costs? Besides, you still need a modem for uploads (and HTTP requests), so you get screwed with latency from the modem, the 'net, and routing through a satellite.

      • Re:Satellites? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:56AM (#3672474) Journal
        "Low-cost for consumers, possibly, but do you have any idea how much a satellite costs? Besides, you still need a modem for uploads (and HTTP requests), so you get screwed with latency from the modem, the 'net, and routing through a satellite."

        This will change soon. Star Choice [starchoice.ca] in Canada is sending up a new satellite that will allow both upstream and downstream through the dish.

        Plus, since their satellite TV sercvice was launched with elliptical as opposed to round [expressvu.ca] dishes, it is possible for the dish to receive signals for 2 satellites at once.

        • Re:Satellites? (Score:2, Informative)

          by shepd ( 155729 )
          >Star Choice in Canada is sending up a new satellite that will allow both upstream and downstream through the dish.

          Starchoice has been saying they'll offer high-speed internet via satellite since '99 (I've asked them yearly after that -- I figure some Canadian company has to be able to provide satellite internet at less than $100/gig). I don't expect their tune to change...

          Besides, two way satellite internet has even worse latency problems than one way, worse rain fade problems, slower than modem upload speeds once there's enough users on the service, and most all places require you to have it installed professionally. :-(

          The only benefit? Its always on (except during a storm). But you can usually cut a deal with an ISP that will cost less to have an always-on modem connection + one-way service than two-way (unless you can get two-way for under $120-$130 US a month)...
      • DirectPC has two way. I don't use it, but I was really considering it when Adelphia was 8 months late on delivering broadband to my area. The local Radio Shack saleskid was running Napster (this was a couple years ago) and had 8 songs simultanously downloading, each at around 20KB.

        Of course the hardware was around $300 and then the monthly service charge was $70 for two-way ($35 for one way).
    • Satellite as it is now SUCKS. There is major latency just due to physics and the fact that the satellite is in geosyncronous orbit. And beyond that, it's just not very fast. My experience with DirecPC (when it was one way, maybe different now, doubt it though) was about 200kbps most of the time. And then there was the fair access policy that slowed the downstream speed to about 20kbps if you downloaded more than 120mb in any 60 minute period. And let's not forget that if it rained hard, it was GUARANTEED to disconnect.

      It's also expensive. My DirecPC was $49/mo but I also had to have a phoneline and a dial-up internet connection so the real cost was closer to about $100. (They also had a deal where you could use their crappy isp service for $59, but you would still need the phoneline.) The 2-way satellite internet services online right now are $69/mo. Or at least they where a year ago back when I was looking at them.

      No, satellite is not a viable alternative in my opinion. At least not in it's current incarnation. Someday, when there are constellations of low earth orbit communications satellites then just MAYBE satellite will have a better chance. But I wouldn't even want to guess on the expense of such a system.

  • Nice but what about interference? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by st0rmshad0w ( 412661 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:31AM (#3672370)
    I don't think this is a last mile solution for broadband (at least in denser population areas) so long as it uses that stretch of unprotected spectrum. With the growing level of noise as the equipment becomes more commonplace I would really need some type of guaranteed reliability before adopting this. Tho I must admit, it is pretty nifty nontheless.

    • Re:Nice but what about interference? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      My microwave oven kills my home 802.11a network every time I turn it on, and my cordless phone frequently kills it, depending on what channel it happens to be using. It also dies from time to time for no reason I can detect, possibly from my neighbors' microwaves or cordless phones. I've replaced my wireless links with a few of Linksys's new powerline bridges [linksys.com]. So far, they work perfectly.

  • And in other news.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jrwillis ( 306262 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:31AM (#3672373) Homepage
    A large group of FCC agents decended on the town of Cupertino, Ca. today to investigate reports that no cordless phone will work within a 20 mile radius of the town.
    • A large group of FCC agents decended on the town of Cupertino, Ca. today to investigate reports that no cordless phone will work within a 20 mile radius of the town.

      The last time I reported intense interference on the AM radio band in a particular location to the FCC, I got a lackadaisical phone call from some dweeb promising to check into it. She made a phone call to the power company to go check their lines. Called a little later to ask if it was still there. "Yes." No further action. Moral: don't count on the FCC to get out of its office chairs to track down your interference problems.

  • If this tech really is a viable replacement for DSL then I want it. I only live 20 Miles from Liverpool and we still havn't got cable TV let alone cable internet.

  • Long on hype, short on details (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:32AM (#3672380) Homepage

    No patents mentioned, for example, which kind of implies that even if this does play nicely in the contended 2.4Ghz band, it will be assimilated by an incumbent. Perhaps (being cynical or realistic as you prefer) that's the idea though: hype a "new" technology, then sell out to whichever Big Business offers you a cheque to go away and stop generating awkward questions from their customer base.

    Kudos for providing a good laugh though:

    • Smart Spectrum(tm) enables a fully secure "unhackable" security layer

    I take it that's "unhackable" in the Oracle "unbreakable" sense of (soto voce) "Claim is for advertising purposes only, has no basis in reality and should not be inferred to imply a warranty of unhackability or fitness for any particular purpose."

    Hey ho. As they themselves say, seeing is believing. I'll believe it when I can either buy it or replicate it.

  • Almost certainly illegal in Europe (Score:4, Informative)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:35AM (#3672388)
    The power regulation of the 2.4GHz band in Europe is severely limiting the growth of community access wireless networks[1]. The UK currently has additional regulation[2] which also disallows ISPs from making commercial use of the band.

    [1] 100mW EIRP.
    [2] Seems to be under review at the moment.

    • The power regulation of the 2.4GHz band in Europe is severely limiting the growth of community access wireless networks[1]. The UK currently has additional regulation[2] which also disallows ISPs from making commercial use of the band.

      Yes, you are right about the fact that this system would be illegal in Europe. However, I'd like to point out that there are restrictions in the US as well. The limit there is 1 W if I recall it correctly; It's a lot more than in Europe, but it's a limit anyway...

      • You can't increase the gain of the system in Europe. If you use a high gain, directional antenna, you have to *lower* the power output top remain within the law.

    • the UK and the EU are reviewing their restrictions on 2.4ghz. Primary driver is that the European telco providers are swimming in debt they need to maintain, and looking to wifi as potentially strong revenue sources. Ironically, the debt they carry is for all of the ridiculous 3G licenses they bought at auction from the very governments that regulate such issues. Perhaps that's why the governments are fastracking these issues, they would rather not see their telcos goes bankrupt and have the finger pointed back at them.
  • Whatever normal people are inventing cheaper, corporations will find a way to implement it not that cheap...

  • Well, at Summercon... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GMontag ( 42283 ) <gmontag@guymontag. c o m> on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:39AM (#3672407) Homepage Journal
    "Their secret weapon is a technology known as a "software-designed radio," which has permitted them to create an inexpensive repeater antenna that can be attached to the outside of a customer's home. The device, which the Etherlinx executives said they believe can be
    built in quantity for less than $150 each, would communicate with a central antenna and then convert the signals into the industry-standard Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, signal for reception
    inside the home."

    Alan Clegg [clegg.com] described pretty much the same thing with off the shelf hardware at Summercon [slashdot.org] recently. Except his solution was staying inside 802.11b and using a 2.4Ghz amplifier [fab-corp.com].

    Granted, his objective was different and the "new" solution is a couple of bucks cheaper, but there are already off-the-shelf solutions that are there for the picking, without adding another licensing layer to the solution.
    • Yeah, I thought the problem was the backbone monopoly rather than the last mile monopoly. Toys to set up far-ranging wireless networks have been around for awhile, but that cheap DS3 so you've actually got content for the network remains elusive.
  • "By the use of innovative software, firmware, and data networking algorithms, EtherLinx can take standard 802.11 hardware components and deliver unprecedented security and speed at a cost structure that is far superior to current wireless and wired methods."
    "We have operationally "lit up" the South Bay and Oakland areas with 2MB Ethernet"
    Not so hot.

  • Second Hand Broadband! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gorbie ( 101704 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:42AM (#3672416) Journal
    I dunno. How long before the folks in Cali start to get up in arms about being subject to your internet transmission waves. They could cause cancer!

    Maybe if they just ban the waves from public places....

  • No technical details (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Keeper ofthe Keys ( 48750 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:43AM (#3672419) Homepage
    After reading through their site, I found no real details of what they are claiming.

    They claim 20 mile connections: OK, I can believe that, since I have some running at 26 miles. A guy in British Columbia has some connections running nearly 50 miles. Nothing new here.

    Their product acts as a "repeater" from the customer premise: Again, nothing new here. Nokia has a reasonably well designed product called RoofTop that also works at 2mbps.

    I would be curious to see how they are addressing the issue of spectrum re-use, since 802.11b only has 3 clear channels to operate on. In a haphazard deployment using customer premise equipment to repeat, RF collision is terrible. What happens during a power outage in a neighborhood? Does the whole area drop out, or is the homeowner required to provide UPS? What happens when the unthinkable happens, and a key repeater/customer terminates his service, and that repeater has to come off the house?

    So many questions, so few answers
    • The way I read it, it seems to me that their will not be one repeater in a neighborhood, but one on each house. And it would be more than a router, but rather something to convert and route their non-standard flavor of 802.11b to regular 802.11b for use inside a person's house.

      I dunno, there is something that feels off to me. Their website is so sparse, and where it's not it's full of buzzwords. It reminds me of those SEC scam pages designed to educate consumers.

  • limitations (Score:5, Informative)

    by SaturnTim ( 445813 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:45AM (#3672427) Homepage
    As someone who has worked with 802.11b outdoors, There are some problems they are going to have to overcome.

    1) Outside, you are pretty much limited to line-of-site. Bodys containing water do a great job of blocking the signal. This includes people, trees, cacti, etc.

    2) The problem with repeaters is that, if an early one goes down, the rest of the chain looses the connection. When hoping to span great distances, this is a problem.

    3) hopping via repeators will cut down on bandwidth, and you are limited to very few hops before you get some severe latency

    4) There are limitations to the amount of power you are allowed to use to boost a signal, from the spec:

    ---- begin copy & paste ----
    (3) Except as shown in paragraphs (b)(3) (i), (ii) and (iii) of this section, if transmitting antennas of directional gain greater than 6 dBi are used the peak output power from the intentional radiator shall be reduced below the stated values in paragraphs (b)(1) or (b)(2) of this section, as appropriate, by the amount in dB that the directional gain of the antenna exceeds 6 dBi.

    (i) Systems operating in the 2400-2483.5 MHz band that are used exclusively for fixed, point-to-point operations may employ transmitting antennas with directional gain greater than 6 dBi provided the maximum peak output power of the intentional radiator is reduced by 1 dB for every 3 dB that the directional gain of the antenna exceeds 6 dBi."
    ---- end copy & paste ----

    So, while their plan sounds interesting, they have some serious issues to overcome, and I don't see how they are going to do it with off the shelf parts. I'll wait till I see a working prototype before I shell out my VC

    • Re:limitations (Score:2, Informative)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Yes, most of this is true in poorly designed systems. My system does not have any of these problems.

      how? simple... you design it like the internet... multiple routes. I have approximately 6 routes from one end to the other on my public WiFi. Yes, it increases cost... it does whenever you do naything in a redundanf fashon. and anyone making a system like that that does not build in redundancy is wasting their and everyone elses time.

      I also have the advantage of load balancing across the multiple routes.
  • This is just what I need for my parents. They have rickety wireless phone (around 10km) and are lucky if they get over 28kbs connection. ISDN will probably never be available there (and I'm not even dreaming about xDSL). Just put up ISDN in some residence in the nearest town, 2 atennas, and voila, decent connection. I do hope that this is for real, I would be ready to try it out.
  • Go to this url, http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html [majcher.com] and paste this address into the form:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/10/technology/10WIR E.html&submit
    Then just press submit. It'll create you an account and log you right in. Nice and simple!!!! :-)
  • we've been giving legal opinions even though majority of us saying 'IANAL'. Now you want us to be the judge? IANAJ, but....(here we go)

  • In a related story (Score:3, Funny)

    by MagicMerlin ( 576324 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:57AM (#3672478)
    The sales of Pringles shot up 124% this quater. "We can't explain it," says company execs. "Young IT professionals just can't seem to get enough of our chips"

    • Re:In a related story (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I can see it now.

      A commercial involving tech freaks dancing around, and snacking on Pringles, and then setting up wireless transmitters.

      Gotta hack some Pringles!

      Man, they could make a fortune. :D
      • I can see it now. A commercial involving tech freaks dancing around, and snacking on Pringles, and then setting up wireless transmitters.

        I can see it, too -- Chips 'n Dips!

        *At the end of the world, if there's only one dollar left, there will be two hands on it. One will be Gates', the other will be Redstone's. - John Malone*

  • radiation pollution? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    Well, I have reservations. And not the kind you get at restaurants. I mean, I'm afraid of what this might mean for the dwindling radio spectrum.

    The nice thing about wires is, you can always make more. You can have two different wires next to each other. Not so with wireless. You want a new link? Add another frequency. And once all the frequencies are used up, well, that's all we got.

    I don't want to stand in the way of progress, but IMO we wasted a whole lot of the spectrum on commercial radio and microwave ovens. Do we really need to use up more of it so people can get faster pron?
    • I think pr0n is still a better use of the airwaves than commercial radio. Have you listened to FM radio lately?

      Don't get me started about TV. 6 MHz bandwidth per channel, and it's all crap...

  • 802.11b vs 802.11a (Score:3, Troll)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @09:00AM (#3672489) Journal
    I don't know that 802.11b is the solution, because of the reported and rumored conflicts vs other wireless devices in the home. Last thing we need is to have a throwback to modem days, with someone shoutint to stay off the telephone because it is screwing up the computer network.

    The better solution is the 802.11a protocol, a new technology that is just being released. You can see a white paper here [proxim.com].

    Bottom line is that 802.11a operates in the 5 to 6 gigahz range, and so avoids the conflict issues that are sometimes seen with 802.11b

    There are issues having to do with band allocation both in Europe and Japan.

    • Why would choose 802.11a? Especially if you already have deployed some 802.11b infrastructure. They are incompatible as they operate in different frequency ranges.

      Why not 802.11g [80211-planet.com] which is backwards compatible with 802.11b and offers the same bandwidth potential (54Mbps) as 802.11?
    • Good idea, except for one _small_ problem: 802.11a's 5ghz wave height is only about 60 centimeters tall (i stand open for correction, but the general idea is that it's small). 802.11b's wave height is twice that, at approximately 122cm. This means 2.4ghz can go MUUUCH farther (lateral distance) than 5ghz at the same power levels. 5ghz just doesn't have the reach of 2.4ghz. An antenna built for 2.4ghz will not work too well with 5ghz frequency. And a 5ghz antenna just plain will not work AT ALL for 2.4ghz. Here's an example I found from google: http://www.frars.org.uk/cgi-bin/render.pl?pageid=1 076

      There are tons of resources for building your own antennas. Just don't be disillusioned by the 5ghz facts and promises. Yes it won't interfere with microwaves and phones. It just won't make it to the other side of your house (NB: assuming u have one of those 2-story 3,000 sq. ft. houses).

      A friend of mine has 802.11a equipment, and we're having problems getting the signal through the bottom part of the house, much less upstairs. We're thinking of a 2nd access point in the middle to achieve the desired effect. I'm gonna go back and test it out soon with some 802.11b equipment.

      So using 802.11b in the situation as this slashdot story suggests is the correct thing after all, if you want to get distance and reduce the costs of equipment.

      ABGD! (gallagher reference for all you 80's folks)
    • Cringely has an article on a new technology for light bulbs that will sabotage 802.11b

      Read it here [pbs.org]

      This new lighting source uses RF energy to excite a gas that then glows brightly, which sounds a heck of a lot like a neon lamp, except this light, which comes from a company called Fusion Lighting, is supposed to be vastly more energy efficient than neon. This apparently catches us between a rock and a bright place: Do we want wireless LANs and satellite radio, or would we prefer to build fewer power plants and import less oil?

      [...]

      While Fusion's light bulbs may in fact cause interference for half a mile around (I don't know that they do, but it has been alleged), that interference doesn't affect ALL 802.11b traffic, just the fastest traffic. That's their loophole, and it's a good one.

      Of course read the original for all of the juicy details. Bottom line is that it doesn't kill wireless, just caps the maximum speed.

  • WTF they talking its, its just 802.11 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jeff Knox ( 1093 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @09:06AM (#3672525) Homepage
    What the heck, why does this justify a NYT article. Basically, they have an 802.11 card, in a small formfactor PC of sorts, with probably some custom built access point software. Their are only a few dozen companies that offer the exact same product, since it is just vanilla 802.11. http://www.musenki.com/ is one, with their M-3 product. 20 Miles? Woopity, anyone can get that with 802.11 and an high gain attenae/amplifer. Their are a multitude of companies offering this service with the same equipment. http://www.techsplanet.com comes to mind. NYT journalist should do their studying before they write lame articles.

  • All the News that's Fit to Print? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @09:07AM (#3672527) Homepage

    This piece shows the hazards of relying on journalism vs. engineering journals for assessing the potential of a company. I had to wonder, why was this company able to get the attention of the NY Times, when it seems as though there are better funded companies using comparable technology.

    Details like Etherlinx's garage being a scant six blocks from Jobs' and Wozniak's first garage are cute, but they tell us less than nothing about the company's potential. I couldn't help wondering if Etherlinx hired some media-savvy marketing person, whose job it was to unearth cute little details like that in order to get journalists' attention.

    Finishing that article, my main feeling wasn't "Gee...it sounds like these guys have some great technology that might overcome the last mile issue." Instead, I came away thinking, "How was it that these guys got the attention of the NY Times without demonstrating anything substantially new?"

  • Unanswered questions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KC7GR ( 473279 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @09:10AM (#3672546) Homepage Journal
    This is a great idea, but the NYT article leaves a number of questions unanswered.

    First: It says they used 'software' to extend the range of the system. I don't see how that's possible unless there's some software tweak that increases the transmitter's output power beyond legal limits. Even then, I question whether the transmitter could handle such overdrive for extended periods as a device designed under FCC Part 15.

    Now, with that said: It -is- possible to enhance existing WiFi hardware with a better antenna, but the transceiver in question would have to have a connector for an external antenna designed right in. You can't just attach something with a clip-lead, and hope it'll work; Not at 2.4 GHz!

    Next up: I've checked Etherlinx's web site as well. It is, if possible, even less detail-rich than the article. I plan to send an E-mail query to try and dig some details out of them.

    Another point: Something that the WiFi peddlers are all neglecting to mention is that 2.4 GHz is (among other things) an amateur ('ham') radio band, and that ATV (Amateur Television) on that band is getting to be mighty popular, especially in the Bay Area. Slashdot has already run an article [slashdot.org] on the issue of low-power interference on 2.4 gigs... I can't help but wonder how well a big WiFi network would deal with the output signal from an ATV repeater when said signal could range anywhere from a couple of watts to the amateur max limit of a thousand watts.

    And no, there is no regulation protecting Part 15 devices from interference. Quite the opposite. Read the label on any such device, and you will find that it is 'required to accept any interference, including that which may cause undesired operation.'

    Just as one example, Carnegie Mellon University has, apparently, already taken this problem into account. Note this article [cmu.edu] from their Computing Services folk. They don't even want other 2.4 gig devices in operation on campus because of their own WiFi network.

    Finally, the issue of security on WiFi has already been beat to death, but I'll mention it again anyway. I don't believe it's possible right now, outside of using some heavy-hitting 3rd party encryption hardware at each end of a link, to get security that's as good as that available on hardwire networks (One word: AirSnort). If anyone can prove me wrong on that point, please do so and I will cheerfully shut up about it! ;-)

    The 'death' of cable or DSL? Not bloody likely. Not until it can offer the same security as hardwire, be interference-free in both transmission and reception, offer the same SPEED as you can get from hardwire, and can do so for a price that won't run us all into the poorhouse.

    • Re:Unanswered questions (Score:3, Interesting)

      by regen ( 124808 )
      It says they used 'software' to extend the range of the system. I don't see how that's possible unless there's some software tweak that increases the transmitter's output power beyond legal limits.

      There are several ways to use software I quickly thought of that could increase the range.

      1. Software controled antenna array.

        By have several antennas in an array and use software to control the power output and phase to each antenna, you can create a highly directional and steerable beam. A similar aproach can be used to control the sensativity of the array in different directions. This could be used to make a very effective attenna that could automattically align itself to the strongest signal, hence reducing install costs.

      2. Adding additional error correction.

        By adding additional error correction you can trade bandwidth for reliability and therefor use a less reliable channel. Since as the range increase reliability of the channel decreases, this can effectively be used to extend the distance at which the devices operate.


      3. That was with about 5 minutes of thought. I could probably (as could most decent comm. engineers) come up with several more if I spent 1/2 an hour thinking about the problem.

  • www.speednetllc.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @09:18AM (#3672591) Journal
    They provide broadband over the air. It's simply DOCSIS piped over the airwaves. The bonus is that these guys are actually using FCC regulated space, so they won't have cordless phones and microwave ovens interfering with their service. These guys are able to transmit 30 miles, and their installation is up and running in two locations right now.
  • We are a WISP (wireless ISP) outside of Philadelphia. While our area does not lend itself to 20 mile shots, we have been doing shorter range service. Our service is just starting up and more information is available at gambitwireless.com. I know of other WISPs doing the 20 mile shots with amps and within FCC regs.

    --derek

    gambitwireless.com
  • With the financial difficulties that the cable and telco's are having, they will fight tooth and nail to keep this new flavor of broadband access in obscurity. Broadband and related services are one of the few parts of their companies that have potential for future revenue growth. Where else are they going to be able to expand their revenue base....? Digital cable? Not likely. Too many people don't want to pay the premium over standard cable service. Long distance? Hardly. There is no real margin in that anymore. Cellular phone service? Possibly, but almost everyone already has a cell phone of some kind. The companies that get more maket share will be the ones who can package better deals. The telecom/ISP industry is very weak right now and will remain so until demand increases and after some more consolidation in the industry.
    • They don't have to fight tooth and nail, they've got monopoly superpower, they own the backbone and they keep it expensive through totally deceptive, yet absoultely legal means. You learn about this when you go to buy a piece to start your wireless ethernet network and their eyes roll back like a shark preparing to eat and they start rolling off these new car salesman stories about how the backbone was built with these future services in mind like video conferencing and various voice telephone service add ons that nobody in their right mind would buy for the prices they're talking about. As a prospective ISP you wonder if they're totally insane. They must realize the market isn't like they think it is, but then you realize they don't really think it's like that. It's all just an excuse to keep the backbone costs high. If you think about it you realize that these overpriced gimmicks that are never going to fly the vastly overpriced way the incumbents have it laid out can at least easily be explained to a seventy year old senator or courtroom judge. After all, that's where the game gets played. If you can win in the courts, fuck the technical stuff. You own them bitchez. And if you've already got the money, all you have to do is play dumb and wait. That's what they're doing and you'd probably do the same if you had more money and power than was good for you.
      It's really just about adding costs to the backbone in any possible way to keep the small players out. ATM/Sonet add vast costs to the backbone infrastructure when you compare them to today's ethernet, but low cost is not desireable for the monopolies. They come up with any excuse not to use straight ethernet switches in place of outdated and expensive ATM/Sonet and tell you that it has to be this way for Quality of Service and anything else would be irresponsible. Arguing the other way is easy on Slashdot and very difficult in Congress or the courts.

  • 700 mhz (Score:2, Interesting)

    by randomErr ( 172078 )
    The old 700 mhz frequency is coming open with the FCC soon. Why not set that aside for data transmission?
  • There's no problem building a single RF link to transmit data 20 miles or so. It's operating hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of them in the same area that's hard.

    And what's the recent Slashdot fascination with New York Times articles? Is VA Whatever planning to sell Slashdot to the NYT, or what?

  • don't forget Cringely's warning (Score:4, Informative)

    by e40 ( 448424 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @11:41AM (#3673346) Journal
    Cringely says [pbs.org] 802.11b is in trouble, and no one seems to care.
  • Read the bios of the two guys running this company, and you'll see that one of them used to be an exec at RealNames, that lame company that got ticked off at Microsoft for not using their stupid scheme. I smell something fishy here...
  • we all know that any company that started in a garage - and is realted to cool technology will fail ultimately. just look at HP.

    oh... wait...
    • Of course, HP's garage invention consisted of

      "HP's first product -- the resistance-capacity audio oscillator (HP 200A), an electronic instrument used to test sound equipment.

      The oscillator uses an incandescent bulb as part of its wiring scheme to provide variable resistance, a breakthrough in oscillator design....The HP Model 200A is so named `because we thought the name would make us look like we'd been around for awhile,' says Dave later."

      from HP's history page [hp.com].

      Somehow, I don't think the NY Times ran a story about this, or that many people thought this was extraordinarily "cool."
  • Reuters - In a stunning example of the dangers of high-frequency communication technology, two garage thinkers were baked crispy gold by microwaves.

    Warning: Contents of Garage may be hot!

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