New WRAN Wi-Fi Signal Offers 60 Mile Range

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I’m sure most of us have been somewhere with our laptops, tablets, smartphones or some MP3 players in tow to take advantage of the free wireless internet a place may offer with purchase of coffee, lunch or what have you. And while wi-fi is a great thing that has allowed us all to freely roam about our houses with laptops and the like in tow, it’s never been what you’d call very long range. At least, until now.

The IEEE, the standards body that helps regulate development of wi-fi technology, has announced the 802.22 technology that allows for not only the long range I mentioned in the headline (a maximum of around 60 miles or 100 km), but also at impressive speeds, maxing out at around 22 meg per channel.

802.22 runs on VHF and UHF television bands, both of which were recently vacated for the most part when the digital television switch kicked in some time back, and this represents a concept that’s likely to change a whole lot of the landscape as we know it.

One of the biggest supporters of the wi-fi system is Apple, and considering that a development like this would allow an iPhone to access, say, a Time Machine drive from 60 miles away, which would mean that mobile broadband networks would be largely meaningless. While we’re at it, this might do nasty things to the concept of cell phones in general–if you can get wi-fi in a 60 mile radius around any relatively populated area, who needs a cell phone when you can use VoIP instead?

And when you can get wi-fi from a range of 60 miles, you have a lot more competition in local markets than you used to. So if, say, Time Warner Cable puts too heavy a cap on its broadband, and you can just switch over to Comcast the next town over, it makes everyone need to reconsider their entire business plan. Just when we’ll actually start seeing these roll out, though, is as yet unknown.

The implications on such a technology are mind-boggling, but what do you guys think here? What kind of impact would 60 mile broadband with 22 meg download speeds have on the world as we know it? Loads of room to speculate here, folks, so head on down to the comments section and speculate away!