New WiFi technology equals greater coverage, greater speeds, no data plans. Don’t expect to see it happen.
Technology is always on the march forward with new stuff being announced all the time but for various reasons very little of what gets announced ever makes it to market.
One of the newest announcements is the one today from the tech-heads at the IEEE standards body that could potentially transform our access and use of the Web.
The new technology is in relation to the next generation WiFi standard, WiFi IEEE 802.22TM, and how it would increase the current coverage area for WiFi to 60 miles and increase speeds to 22Mps.
The new standard does this by utilizing television bands without interfering with the reception of existing television broadcast stations.
This technology takes advantage of VHF and UHF TV bands and transmits broadband wireless internet over 60 miles in diameter. This technology takes place in the space between channels, aka the place where the poltergeists live, if you believe technology lore. The officials at the IEEE standards body have noted the following about this new age in wireless technology:
This new standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs) takes advantage of the favorable transmission characteristics of the VHF and UHF TV bands to provide broadband wireless access over a large area up to 100 km from the transmitter. Each WRAN will deliver up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with reception of existing TV broadcast stations, using the so-called white spaces between the occupied TV channels.
IEEE, the world’s largest professional association advancing technology for humanity that is, noted that this technology will be “especially useful” in less densely populated areas, developing countries, and other locations where most vacant television channels can be found.
There is only one problem with this – the chances that the wireless carriers would adopt the new standard is probably slim to none. Sure the greater speeds and coverage area would be fantastic from a marketing point of view but the fact that we would no longer really need to be forking over a pound of flesh every month for their data plans is sure to guarantee we won’t see this new standard being adopted.
