also @ TechSpot: Top PC Games for this Holiday Season and Beyond

Subscribe

Newsletter Our Feeds

Receive weekly updates on new articles, news and contests in your mail!

Email address:

Information Technology

Intel develops long-range Wi-Fi

By Jose Vilches, TechSpot.com
Published: March 19, 2008, 3:58 PM EST
Wi-Fi is taken for granted by those who live in cites with well-established infrastructures for cable and telephone networks, but the technology is not nearly as ubiquitous in rural areas and the developing world. In light of this, Intel has been developing a platform capable of extending a Wi-Fi signal between antennas situated 60 miles apart with the purpose of connecting sparsely populated villages to the Internet.

At less than $500 per router and an estimated $1,000 for two nodes and the associated backend infrastructure, Intel's Rural Connectivity Platform (RCP) should deliver Internet access at a relatively low cost. It uses just a few watts of power too (5-6W at most), meaning solar power could be an option for truly wireless broadcasting.

The company has already installed and tested RCP in India, Panama, Vietnam, and South Africa. It plans to start selling it in India later on in the year for less than $500 with general availability likely to follow in short order if everything goes well.

Related Stories

User Comments (1)

Post a comment
ezpcmars
on March 21, 2008
12:59 AM
Wow, Very interesting. Perhaps eventually ISPs will be CELL Phone Tower owners
Wonder how much bandwidth those will offer...

Online TV broadcasts didn't make TV Cable out of business after all.

Browse more commented news