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Tip of the Day - Wireless Internet |
Wireless Internet
Big News in Toronto. The Toronto Star is reporting that the biggest city in Canada (that would be Toronto) is about to get blanketed in WiFi goodness, joining such US cities as Philadelphia and San Francisco with similarly ambitious municipal broadband initiatives. Mayor David Miller is expected to announce the project in conjunction with Toronto Hydro, who had previously bought 18,000 street lamps around the city for $60 million, and which will be used partly to help the water utility fulfill a mandate requiring it to deploy remotely-readable smart meters. No details are available yet regarding proposed pricing structures or benefits to the city such as reduced-cost access for low-income households, but the project already has some detractors who question the appropriateness of government involvement in citywide mesh networks. Also keeping a close eye on developments are major Canadian telecom players such as Rogers, Bell, and Tellus, whose own wired and wireless broadband services could be threatened by Toronto Hydro's network. In hopes of keeping up with the IT Solutions with other major cities in the world, Toronto is looking to be found everywhere, and the citizens of Toronto will be able to find anything, anywhere.
Bigger news for Wi-Fi
Computing Canada, an industry wide, recognized magazine, has indicated that Wi-Fi will be revolutionized once again. Currently, supporting 11Mbits (802.11b) or 54Mbits (802.11a/g), the Wi-Fi Standards Group has decided to increase the speed of the next wireless local-area networks (WLAN) standard to 600Mbits (802.11n). Some people believe that this will allow companies to connect two locations within the same city.
The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced this month its High Throughput Task Group voted to changed its 802.11n (WLAN Medium Access Control and Physical Layer Specifications: Enhancements for Higher Throughput), which is expected to be finalized next year. While Techies and gamers might find a sudden use for the increased speed and signal of wireless connections, it's likely that most will not buy into it right away since our wired connections are still 100mBits. While gigabits (1000mbits/sec) networks are out these days, the upgrade cost is still high. Most businesses are still using 100mBit wired networks, so the upgrade and transition will probably be fairly slow in the market. Needless to say though, the increased bandwidth and speed will change our communication and need work requirements again.
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