CricketMX.com

No doubt a bonanza to the wiley hacker, but here it is, wireless DSL technology

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Apr18.html

The new wireless technology is called WiMax (for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). It would allow homes and businesses to receive high-speed Internet service wirelessly instead of via cable or telephone lines. The range of the service would depend on many factors; in rural areas, the signal could travel as far as 30 miles, according to Intel.

This is a great step forward, just wheres all the power for it going to come from ? (More batteries anyone ? )

I read about this too. Apparently it uses a wider range of frequencies in the microwave band than existing WiFi. That means that it has A ) greater range B ) wider scope for avoiding interference and C ) more potential to cause interference

Here's what I expect will happen. New providers will emerge and will run powerful transceivers, they'll have high bandwidth connections to the regional backbone. End users will take out a contract with the provider and never have to worry about location or wires ever again. They'd be able to use their connection anywhere in their home city/district/region.

Also... I expect this will make the internet even harder to police. Short of using microwave triangulation, it's going to be hard to pinpoint a hacker's geographical position in the near future. GSM networks are able to fairly quickly locate a phone user or a GPRS user if they're ordered to do so by a court, because they have many transceivers. Triangulation is easy for them and they can usually fix the location to within a few metres. I suppose as this new WiMax (dangerous name - it's not likely to be the 'max' for long) technology becomes more popular, the larger providers may invest in multiple transceivers... who knows, we may even get national or international coverage. If this happens, it will once again be relatively easy to locate users.

i never understood why computer based wireless networking was always so crap and short range - its not like they dont have the technology for long range high bandwidth low power network links (such as those contained within those little boxes they call "mobile phones")