Wifi Usb Is On Its Way

dubdvd

I came across this last week in a mag i read...sounds good runs at the same speed as usb 2 ..which btw is way faster than any other wifi standard out there at the moment only downfall is its range is very small about 10 feet i think ???
here's a linky about it
http://www.deviceforge.com/articles/AT9015145687.html

The Free Man

so long bluetooth......

kjt

That sounds cool, in all fairness 10ft is fairly good compared to.... 0ft (pluggin it in) lol

Inspector Gadget

The Free Man wrote:

so long bluetooth......

So long bus-powered devices...

Gadget

L1011

Wifi USB has been around since about 1999, same time as normal wifi started getting common. Nothing new to see here, move along now...

Well, there is. Security - you could end up printing your documents to a printer in a car outside...

Mutant_Fruit

MYOB wrote:

Well, there is. Security - you could end up printing your documents to a printer in a car outside...

Of course, providing your computer is right beside the window, and you parked your car right outside the window

Inspector Gadget

MYOB wrote:

Wifi USB has been around since about 1999, same time as normal wifi started getting common. Nothing new to see here, move along now...

Well, there is. Security - you could end up printing your documents to a printer in a car outside...

Erm, are you by any chance confusing the notion of a USB Wi-fi adaptor (i.e. a thing that you plug into a USB port to gain access to a Wi-Fi network) with what people are talking about here - namely, getting rid of the need to physically connect the two devices together (i.e. no ports whatsoever) and have everything communicate over some form of radio network instead (a la bluetooth, only with better range/bandwidth)?

Gadget

Fibonacci

Inspector Gadget wrote:

So long bus-powered devices...

Gadget

Nice point.

Instead of a wire going from the computer, you'll have a wire going from a power source.... marginal advantage.

MorningStar

Does anybody else not just find that many WiFi devices don't stay connected. I have had to test these things out in work and they generally fell off the network at least once in a hour. Some improvements here and there but still didn''t seem reliable enough for a working environment. I tried it at home too and it was a little worse.
Bluetooth can be good for somethings but seems to eat energy. I could just be getting old but wires still seem best if possible

Rew

Its not WiFi USB is Wireless USB (WUSB)... Its looking very good range has to be short to get the high data rates and low power consumption. The best thing about it is that any device can be converted to WUSB by adding a small dongle to the cable.

As for WiFi and devices droping off the net, it really depends on the quality of the gear you use.

MorningStar

Rew wrote:

As for WiFi and devices droping off the net, it really depends on the quality of the gear you use.

I was using industrial equipment (different manufacturesrs) designed to work in ware houses with additional signal recievers compared to the specs. In an empty warehouse they didn't work perfectly and when full they proved useless. Use docking stations and local DBs instead of a central DB as a result of failure. Any of my friends with wifi say it drops connection pretty regularly but they have got used to it.

Rew

Big metal structures like a warehouse cause huge problems to WiFi gear. Placing enough of it in the right places should sort you out though. We have WiFi links going 10+ miles that are compleatly stable but i have **** wirless AP at home that drops the connection all time. Im surprised you were getting poor preformance out of the industrial stuff, did u try the Cisco gear?

MorningStar

Rew wrote:

Big metal structures like a warehouse cause huge problems to WiFi gear. Placing enough of it in the right places should sort you out though. We have WiFi links going 10+ miles that are compleatly stable but i have **** wirless AP at home that drops the connection all time. Im surprised you were getting poor preformance out of the industrial stuff, did u try the Cisco gear?

I think most of the wireless stuff ends up being Cisco anway. Tried lots of different brands and they were useless in the environment they were meant for. If the interference stops it working in a empty warehouse can't see how anybody gets a 10 mile plus in a built up environment? What are you using? I don't think I saw anything claiming 10 miles with WiFi.
If house WiFi appliances don't work as standard I don't get why people go on about it so much. Maybe it is only the cheap stuff but the expensive stuff is nearly the same as getting an electrician in to wire the house up. I still don't find it reliable.

Rew

10 miles is using big directional antennas, some sort of PC (full PC, mini ITX, specfic small boards) and Atheros based PCI cards. OS Linux distro that has paid to licence the various wirless drivers. Links are stable ping times are decent, bandwith is anywere up to 54mbits half duplex. Most links are done using line of sight but not always. Part of the IrishWAN stuff.

The warehouse is actually a fairly hostile to the WiFi signal, the metal causes reflections, refractions or just absorbes it. Still I don't think u should be getting serious prblems, a few AP's in key points should have given you good coverage.

Iv seen cheaper **** gear (off the shelf pc world stuff) that just stops sending and reciving for no good reason or the signal drops off for no reason.

I did a big installaton over a college campus a year or 2 ago and it worked great (3Com gear). Some buildings were better then others but generally there were no major hassles.

MorningStar

Rew wrote:

I did a big installaton over a college campus a year or 2 ago and it worked great (3Com gear). Some buildings were better then others but generally there were no major hassles.

Well our clients wouldn't put up with that kind of realiability and we agreed that the hardware providers failed. It was worth a lot of money to them so we tried everything. A ware house isn't that much different from other buildings if it is a modern build. Basically there is a steel frame and plastic type roof not metal. We never go the stuff working right in the office with the experts here.

Rew

When I said some buildings were better then others I ment that some were covered by fewer accesspoints due to the construction of them. Part of the college was an old church and related buildings. Some of the walls were over 3 feet thick!

The sytem was relaiable and compleaty coverage was only a matter of adding more access points. In some cases you could maintain you connection as you transitioned between buildings. MY home internet connection goes over at least 5 wireless hops before hitting the internet, travling 40km+. Only dodgy bit is my own AP that I know is faulty and havn't bothered to replace.

I don't know what happend with you guys, was it just one site (possibly local interferance?) did you try 802.11a (5.8GHz) gear instead? Its definalty not typical of WiFi anyway.