From the Lab: Information Technology Long-Distance Wi-Fi – Protocol extends the range of wireless networks

Results: Researchers in India have developed a communications protocol to increase the coverage area of Wi-Fi mesh networks. In a conventional Wi-Fi network–like the ones that are now common at many urban cafEs and airports–a base station with a wired connection to the Internet exchanges radio signals with users’ portable devices.

In a Wi-Fi mesh network, by contrast, several nodes can exchange radio signals with each other as well as with users. Such a network can provide Wi-Fi coverage for a given geographical area at a lower cost than a series of conventional Wi-Fi networks, because not all of its nodes must be wired to the Internet.

The new protocol enables off-the-shelf Wi-Fi radios to form mesh networks with distances of up to 40 kilometers between their nodes–compared with one kilometer or less for existing Wi-Fi mesh networks–while maintaining or even increasing data transfer speeds.

In a simulation of a mesh network with nodes at least seven kilometers apart, the researchers achieved data transmission speeds 20 times as high as those possible with Wi-Fi’s existing protocol.

Full Story: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/10/issue/ftl_info.asp?trk=nl