FCC Greenlights Superfast Wi-Fi Tethering for AR and VR Headsets (theverge.com) 5
The FCC has unanimously approved plans by several tech companies to use the 6GHz band for wireless devices. From a report: FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel proposed the new rules, which would authorize very low power (VLP) operations -- meaning their signals won't be able to go very far -- in about 850MHz of the spectrum, on September 27th. The rules will also allow devices to "use higher power levels" so long as they're geofenced to keep from interfering with actual licensed 6GHz usage, and the FCC will be taking comments on other ways it can expand 6GHz spectrum usage by technology devices.
A September Bloomberg report pointed to some of the kinds of devices the FCC's affirmative vote could open up, including in-car connections, mobile virtual or augmented reality devices, and more. The FCC originally opened up 1,200MHz of the 6GHz spectrum for unlicensed use by Wi-Fi routers and client devices (think smartphones or laptops), giving home networks far more wireless overhead than existing Wi-Fi standards already had. This new approval expands the spectrum for much more general use.
A September Bloomberg report pointed to some of the kinds of devices the FCC's affirmative vote could open up, including in-car connections, mobile virtual or augmented reality devices, and more. The FCC originally opened up 1,200MHz of the 6GHz spectrum for unlicensed use by Wi-Fi routers and client devices (think smartphones or laptops), giving home networks far more wireless overhead than existing Wi-Fi standards already had. This new approval expands the spectrum for much more general use.
A lot better than 60GHz (Score:4, Informative)
They tried 60GHz first, but at that point you might as well use optical. It was amazing and useless technology for headsets (good for car radar and fixed data links though) no matter the bandwidth.
6GHz WiFi is useless because even at the faintest level of interference a band becomes useless, a couple of headsets trying to do near lossless video in a flat is going to saturate the band. Now the headsets are allowed to be shouty, or as the FCC puts it "without any need for a frequency coordination system". It will raise the SNR a bit, but make far more aggregate bandwidth available in a given area.
In-Car VR?! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Skimming the headline made me think this was being developed for in-car VR use, and I can think of few things I want less than a VR helmet on while I try to drive. It does sound like a fun thing to put in a cyberpunk story!
I dunno, those drone racers seem to do pretty well with them. Maybe it'd be safer for some of the easily distracted edge-cases to wear a VR helmet while driving. One that doesn't let them see anything inside the car aside from control mechanisms.
Re: In-Car VR?! (Score:2)
Heh! What, Back to the Future didn't convince you?
I think the feature they're referring to involves a smartphone wirelessly sending video to the in-dash display. That way you can use your phone's GPS with all its traffic-tracking goodness.