A WiFi technology capable of covering an area with a 50 mile radius is likely to revolutionise broadband internet for rural and semi-rural areas. One of the early adopters of the technology is the Yurok American Indian reservation in Northern California, near the Oregon border.
For a glimpse of the wireless future, take a look at the Yurok Indian reservation, an out-of-the-way spot just south of the California-Oregon border at the mouth of the Klamath River. There, among the giant redwoods, stand three new towers built to create a new type of wireless network, known as "super Wi-Fi." If the U.S. Federal Communications Commission gets its way, super Wi-Fi will become a key part of rural America's digital infrastructure.Google thinks that Super WiFi will be revolutionary in impact. When you consider what go-anywhere broadband internet could do for global communications, it is hard to disagree.
Most people living on the Yurok's 63,000-acre reservation lack phone service. Almost none have high-speed Internet. The new towers aim to fix both problems. Unlike regular Wi-Fi networks, which are generally limited to beaming high-speed Internet around a house, super Wi-Fi promises to blanket entire neighborhoods with high-speed access.
A Yurok tribal spokesman says the new signals will reach even into the steep-walled valleys that play havoc with most wireless signals.
...Unlike most wireless advances, super Wi-Fi's much-improved range has little to do with better technology. Instead, the dramatic jump comes from the FCC's decision to free up airwaves that have long been reserved exclusively for local TV broadcasts. Those TV airwaves are lower in frequency than standard cellular and Wi-Fi airwaves and thus better able to penetrate buildings and other objects.
...Since rural America has fewer local TV stations, it will have far more of these empty "white spaces" to fill with new wireless signals, points out Alex Besen, who runs an industry consultancy, the Besen Group. In many rural areas, super Wi-Fi will have access to well over 200 megahertz of spectrum, he estimates—more capacity than Verizon and AT&T combined. That huge injection of spectrum could revolutionize the digital infrastructure of rural America, Besen says. _TechnologyReview
In other consumer electronics technology news, the tablet computer field will receive some new entries at the 14 Feb 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The stage is set for a battle among new tablet PCs at the Mobile World Congress which will kick off in Barcelona on Feb. 14. Major companies including Samsung, LG, Motorola and HTC are expected to show off their new devices running on the Honeycomb version of Google's Android OS at the show. Honeycomb is better suited to the larger screens of tablets rather than smartphones and supports 3D Google maps and video chat.
...While the iPad will likely stick with its 9.7-inch screen, Samsung is trying to reach a more broad spectrum of customers by targeting different segments with products of different sizes, industry experts say. Samsung's new tablets are equipped with two CPUs and include a high-definition 8-megapixel camera.
LG Electronics is set to release its 8.9-inch Optimus Pad that it revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, while Motorola Mobility is launching its flagship 10-inch Xoom tablet, which was highly acclaimed at CES.
Meanwhile, Apple is expected to unveil the successor to the iPad in March or April in San Francisco._Chosun
Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri
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