It was good to read Jerry Johnson’s letter in the February Camden News about the new Minneapolis citywide wireless access to the Internet, and about his frustrations with slow connections in the past. I share those frustrations, even with a high speed cable connection, but I have some questions.
One question is about using more than one computer on the citywide Wi-Fi network, say a laptop and a desktop, will that cost double your money? Presently with cable or telephone provided broadband (high speed) you can have a wired or wireless router in your home or place of business and access the Internet simultaneously with more than one computer, and at the same subscription fee.
How broad is broadband? Bandwidth is a limiting factor in how fast the service to you is and how many communications can take place at one time. It limits the amount of information exchanged. All this leads to congestion on the wireless spectrum, with problems of interference, security, etc.
I had to solve problems of radio (i.e., wireless) interference as a production technician, and I deal with these laws of physics even now as an amateur radio operator. Let me warn the over-enthusiastic wireless consumer that there are no miracles or magic in any modern technology, including wireless. The more popular its use becomes, the slower it will go. The summary principle is “Goes into, gets outta.” Its corollary principle is, “Too much input, little or no output.”
Just a few weeks ago a new light pole replaced one knocked over by a car across the street from me. On it is one of those “funny-looking” things Jerry Johnson referred to, and Brock Hanson photographed. My laptop’s wireless survey tab revealed it as “USI Wireless Coming Soon,” a form of advertising. But this advertising signal interfered with my laptop computer’s access to my own wireless router!
“Wireless” is really the same as a transmission wire, a transmission line without a metal or glass “wire.” It’s finite and can carry only a certain amount of data, audio, video and all we want to dump onto this wireless transmission line. The bad news is that there is really only one such wireless transmission line in the whole world! It’s called the spectrum, which handles “everything from direct current to daylight,” and it must be shared by everybody on this planet and beyond. The good news is that the spectrum is instantly renewable, but only if we turn off all our modern devices that access the wireless spectrum.
Another bit of good news is that much of the spectrum can be duplicated in part by copper wires (or coaxial wires) or fiber optic wires. “Hard wires” like these are much less subject to, but not completely immune from, interference.
John Bispala,
Webber-Camden