Yawn: First commercial Super Wi-Fi network goes live
Here is a technology that’s both long on promise and, disappointingly, even longer in the time it’s taking to roll out. Whereas there are some notable White Space Television (WSTV) network deployments, including one just launched in a mid-size North Carolina city, the fact that you can count all of them with fingers to spare says a lot.
Spectrum Bridge, Inc, and New Hannover County North Carolina have announced the first commercial deployment of Super Wi-Fi, which (oddly enough only) provides public internet access in local parks and broadband for video security surveillance.
“We are extremely pleased with the installations of the white spaces systems at our parks and gardens,” said Ted Davis, Chairman, New Hanover County. “This technology has proven to be an unobtrusive, environmentally friendly way to offer services to our citizens and the visitors at our parks and to give our staff more efficient ways to manage these locations.”
Super Wi-Fi provides for up to 22Mbps throughput and, more importantly, can deliver signals up to 100km (62 miles) away. Because of its low frequency, Super Wi-Fi is also better in non-line-of-sight settings, such as urban areas or hilly/forested rural areas.
Interestingly enough, Wilmington, North Carolina, the New Hannover County seat, also hosted the first public test of digital television back in 2008.
To the 20th Century and beyond!
The roadblocks to Super Wi-Fi deployment are restrictions and blackout zones (i.e. the big metros) related to digital broadcast television and — WTF! — wireless microphones. Fundamentally, if the feds turned off digital TV tomorrow, and sprinkled magic pixie dust, everyone could get hi-def TV (and high-speed internet) via Super Wi-Fi.
Alas, we’re getting what we’ve got, which is a whole bunch of vested interest bull cookies…
What’s your take?
via The Verge
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January 27th, 2012
Now this is interesting! Its this kind of technology that is the future. Even though it will take a while for it to arrive, I think it is a definite possibility for this type of technology. With the hurdles we’ve already overcome, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were able to get over the things that affect the signal (wireless microphones). We can only hope that the feds see from our point of views on this.