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Wider-Fi
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 08:24:14 -0500
------ Forwarded Message From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com> Wider-Fi - Apr 14, 2003 12:00 AM (Forbes.com) A little-known standard called Wi-Fi turned into the hottest technology of the year and shook the wireless industry to its core. Now its successors hope to leave Wi-Fi in the dust. That sound you hear, that incessant tapping on laptops at the corner cafe, the local park and the airport lounge, is music to the ears of the beleaguered tech industry. Wi-Fi, the magical wireless link that lets all those tappers blast data short distances at 200 times the speed of a dial-up modem for no extra cost, has turned into the only bright note punctuating Silicon Valley's indigo mood. Only three years old, Wi-Fi, a once-obscure wireless standard with the ungainly real name of IEEE 802.11, went supernova last year, selling 18 million connections--one of the fastest adoption rates of any consumer technology in history. Tens of thousands of Wi-Fi "hotspots" have sprouted around the country. Some McDonald's now offer a free link with the purchase of a combo meal. In March Intel kicked off a $300 million-plus marketing blitz for a new brand, Centrino, that packages together a new laptop microprocessor with a Wi-Fi receiver. Now it looks like history may repeat itself. In January the industry group that spawned Wi-Fi released a new standard that may put the old one to shame. It extends the wireless range of Wi-Fi from roughly 300 feet to several miles and lets signals bounce around obstacles and penetrate walls; it also fixes security flaws and adds high-quality phone calls. This new standard is dubbed 802.16a by the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers , which disdains catchy names. Some are calling it Wi-Max, but a better tag might be Wider-Fi. Meanwhile, a rival group at IEEE is working on 802.20--a kind of Mobile-Fi that promises speedy links in cars and trains traveling at speeds that can exceed 120 miles an hour. ... - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=32622361 ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Wider-Fi Dave Farber (Mar 31)