The Future: Good News and Bad News
What innovations can we look forward to, and what problems might we face?
Good News: New Standards to Help
Standards that allow coexistence between current and upcoming protocols are in development.
802.11h
This IEEE group (802.11h) is developing transmission power control (TPC) and dynamic frequency selection (DFS) protocols. These protocols will use the band more efficiently and be required for European deployment.
The standard is expected to be available soon. Atheros Communications, Inc. is already starting to ship 802.11a chipsets with these features.
802.15: WPAN (Bluetooth)
The 802.15 IEEE task group is developing a set of “Coexistence Mechanisms” that will facilitate the coexistence of WLAN and WPAN devices with methods such as “Data Rate Scaling.”
802.16.2
The subgroup of “Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access Standards” for Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) is called “Coexistence of Fixed Broadband Wireless Access Systems.” This group is researching what it takes to deploy a MAN and to solve interference issues.
The Bad News
New sources of interference and organized opposition to wireless community networks may make deployment more difficult.
Radio frequency (RF) lighting
Some companies have experimented with excited sodium lamps that use RF energy from 2.4 to 2.4835GHz. Such lamps have a broader and more contiguous spectrum than mercury vapor. They are also four times more efficient.
ISM band users are concerned that this type of lamp could ...
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