Wi-Gig signals are bouncing off the walls, can't settle on the sofa “Millimetre-wave” wireless technologies (such as un 802.11ad) are seen by vendors as a key part of future in-home connectivity, but there's a lot of work to be done to actually make it work. That's the conclusion of a group of University of Buffalo boffins, who ran a series of tests on 60 GHz wireless systems to see how they …
Much as I hate to agree with you- from the description in the article- the answer screaming at us is to make more use of wired connections. 60Ghz is not fit for purpose in the academic setting- so its hardly going to be any better in a residential setting. Can you see the average Joe Soap trying to configure antennas and align them with the mobile device? It ain't going to happen..........
Combine it with the PoE LED lighting suggested a couple of days ago...
Run Cat6 to your light fittings - use PoE for the LED fixture and an array of antenna.
Many rooms have a centrally located, elevated, lamp - or a set of elevated lamps at intervals along the walls - They would be ideal locations.
Of course I still can't quite work out why I need more wireless bandwidth - specialised cases (HDMI replacement) will be static and not subject to people walking in their beam path...
"Much as I hate to agree with you- from the description in the article- the answer screaming at us is to make more use of wired connections. 60Ghz is not fit for purpose in the academic setting- so its hardly going to be any better in a residential setting. Can you see the average Joe Soap trying to configure antennas and align them with the mobile device?"
It's certainly not going to be as useful as Wifi and Bluetooth for regular mobile use, but there are still cases that could be worth it. My PC, TV and router are all static devices at various locations around a fairly large room. Wiring them all up means multiple long cables routed all around the room; it's possible, but not particularly attractive and always leaves the possibility of something coming loose or whatever. High speed, directional Wifi would be a perfect replacement for this sort of situation. I don't care about things getting in the way because I'll be sitting down in one place while it's in use, I don't want to wander around the house carrying a TV on my back, I just want to do without the bother of nailing wires around every wall in the room.
As for the average Joe having problems aligning antennas, well firstly it never used to be a problem when they had to do it for their TVs in the past so I don't see why it would be so bad now. But even if it is slightly trickier, the average Joe probably can't route their wiring competently either. Those who can will do it themselves, those who can't will get someone to do it for them, just as many people already do anyway to get their TVs mounted on walls, connected to satellite dishes, and so on. If they had to do it every time they wanted to use their phone that might be a problem, but for the more likely use cases for Wi-gig it's no more complicated than the existing solutions.
quote
deploy multiple access points
This made me laugh. Why not equip those flabby mortals with Wifi relays (aka tinfoil hats). Then 'The Man' can keep better tabs on them because I am sure that it won't be long before some research paper is released showing one (or both) of the following
1) That the distrubance of Wifi in the home caused by Humans above 2ft 6in high can be tracked by the Ad companies
2) The disturbance of Wifi caused by humans moving around is a zero day security risk. The fix is to stop those flabby blobs from moving around their home.
mines the one with a tin-foil lining
the 60GHz antenna alignment could always be automated. The nearly successful US military software radio extravaganza featured micro-mechanical elements on the antennas for beam-forming/tuning from 10MHz to many GHz (JTRS SCA/Antennas needed their own Pentium CPU & data channel to drive the RF MEMS). These MEMS systems are already in satellites and should arrive in smartphones. (Wikipedia claim that the Samsung Omnia W already have RF MEMS) I notice most uses are so far upto around 18GHz. Wikipedia claims that their own entry is too complicated to read! fun. . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_frequency_microelectromechanical_system
I'll therefore also vote for Li-Fi modulated LED in domestic, automotive & office situations . .
To get more low margin Wifi kit to market and don't care if it's actually usable. I have to wonder where this market for multi-gigabit Wifi is? What's going to drive the demand for it on mobile devices were battery life is far more important than how many times faster your Wifi is than your internet connection?
At any rate solutions would seem to include some sort of negotiated triangulation of directional antennas on another band or as the article suggests more transmitters to expand the range of the WLAN. Which all leads back to selling more low margin kit.
Although in the end it seems silly considering it has many of the same limitations as LiFi.
...the answer seems to be that the original idea to use this spectrum may have come from Plessey, I remember seeing it in the early to mid 1980s with 6-sector antennas mounted on office partitions (in concept, there was no working hardware). 60GHz is an oxygen absorption line so there is much higher than R-squared attenuation on the RF path. This is deliberate for frequency reuse reasons, so the problem with non-LoS and narrow beam antennas is only part of the issue.
The point of 60ghz is to have it *in addition* to 2.4 or 5ghz. So, you are in range, you use the 60ghz range. You're in a 60ghz dead spot, you use the 2.4 or 5ghz, but it's got much less traffic on it than it would otherwise. In some office locations, in stadiums, etc., where there's a lot of access points, or in something like a coffee shop where there's fewer very busy APs, I could see 60ghz helping a lot.
That said... I don't have a use for it, the LOS restriction is too much. At my parent's house, the AP is towards the center of the house, but most of the wireless clients are several rooms away. At my house, the AP's sitting wherever and the clients are a room away... maybe it'd reflect. But I can get real-world 120mbps over the wifi anyway so I'm not really looking for more speed. At my friend's house, the AP's upstairs on a bookshelf, so near 1 wireless client but the rest are downstairs.
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