The Woes of Wifi

Although wifi is a relatively new technology (at least new enough to be inadequately supported on less popular platforms), it's limitations far outweigh the small amount of convenience we get out of it. Sure, the ability to connect to the Internet without having to use a Cat5 cable is nice, as long as you're close enough to your access point. The severely limited range of the wifi signal shatters the illusion of freedom and makes you feel as though there is a virtual cable attached to your machine, locking you into a rough 30 meter sphere.

Wifi is also a far too ambiguous technology. Instead of having a standardized chipset like other technologies (namely serial, parallel, USB, and firewire ports), there are upwards of 12 different wifi chipsets, many of which won't work with a generic driver. Some chipsets won't work with some operating systems and other hardware, and many manufacturers omit critical drivers for certain operating systems, favoring to provide more support for those who need it-naive Windows users. There is no need for these manufacturers to make things so hard on those who stray away from Windows, but they do.

To replace wifi on a large scale, I have a few possible solutions (listed in order of feasibility):

Massive wifi access towers placed at strategic locations around the globe (starting with countries who are willing to pay for it, of course). We have FM radio towers scattered everywhere. We have cellular phone towers scattered everywhere. Why can't we build towers with high power wifi transceivers on them? Or better yet, add wifi access points to existing cellular towers? That would cut the cost dramatically and eliminate the strategy involved in finding appropriate spots for new towers. These terrestrial antennas could provide millions of people with much needed Internet access, almost anywhere they venture.

The second possibility is also based on an existing technology; satellites orbiting the globe provide almost every means of communication. Television, radio, phone, and even Internet access are being delivered by great machines in the sky as you read this. The problem is that a connection to the Internet via satellite is incredibly expensive because service providers are driven by old fashioned capitalism and want to recuperate the cost of their million dollar investment. For a solution, we should look to NASA. They launch things into space all the time at the expense of tax payers, so why not satellites designed to deliver Internet access to anyone with a small dish?

Article by Rich Moore