[LINK] Indonesia Overtaking Australia with Wireless Internet

[Paul Brooks]

On 5/06/2011 6:39 PM, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
> Not Wifi that's in trouble ... the ability of radio to replace last mile 
> connections. People will still use WiFi in-home and good luck to them. 
> While allowing that streaming can cause even 802.11n to bump its head 
> (I've been told), it will be fine in the home. After all, where people 
> can't get the WiFi to do what they want, they will run a boring old 
> Ethernet cable.

Certainly WiFi is still being improved, depending on which characteristic you deem to
be important. Gigabit Wifi ("WiGig") is only 12 - 24 months away, with one group
working on 1 Gbps and another working group working on 7 Gbps (look for 802.11ad) (see
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/03/panasonic-shrinks-wigig-for-cellphones-sets-our-hearts-a-flutte/
for first silicon announced last week).

The kicker is that these use the 60GHz frequency band, which has high attenuation even
in air - the maximum range of WiGig is expected to be roughly 5 - 10 metres.
NICTA here in Australia has been a leader in this area.

Widespread streaming in the home should be fairly seamless using this gigabit-scale
link speed (compared to 802.11n which can achieve 40 - 60 Mbps half-duplex real world
file-transfer speeds), but only within the same room. For networking the kids
cubbyhouse out the back,  802.11n with slower speed but longer range, is still likely
to be the solution.

P.