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Wireless won't work for HD TV
Submitted by acohill on Sat, 08/26/2006 - 08:45.
This article discusses Intel's belief that wireless networks in the home are inadequate for high definition television. The highly touted 802.11g, with a theoretical maximum bandwidth will only deliver about 22 megabits under the best of conditions in an in-home network, and performance could be much worse. In other words, it will barely handle a single channel of HD TV--as long as you or any one in the family is not doing anything else on the network.
Community wireless projects that rely entirely on WiFi are going to be similarly disappointed, as that bandwidth now has to be shared among several households. WiFi and its variants don't work well going through walls, and the wireless systems that experience poor reception because of interference operate much more slowly.
What does Intel recommend? The firm suggests wiring your house with Ethernet cable designed to support the very efficient Gigabit Ethernet standard (Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable, which is very inexpensive).
We have wireless HD
It is true that 802.11 and even 802.16 do not support HD data rates due to contention issues that are inherent in the protocols. However, our company, HauteSpot Networks, has a wireless protocol that supports actual TCP/IP throughput of over 65Mbps with no jitter and low delay variation. Exactly what HDTV needs.
See our web site at www.hautespot.net
HD and wireless
Bit rates of several gigabits are available from off the shelf equipment and are in use every day in point to point networks. I was not arguing that wireless can't support HD TV at all, but rather that common point to multipoint protocols like 802.11 and 802.16 don't. The Hautespot equipment can indeed support HD TV signals wirelessly, but it is not designed or priced for consumer use and would not be affordable in a communitywide deployment.
Actually Price is within reach
Our HR-IXP product family is afford ably priced relative to optical or licensed microwave (ie Dragonwave, Stratix, etc) with unlicensed units starting below $900. Yes, this is more than most home brew and community network users want to pay ($49), but it is very realistic for someone who wants to deliver high performance connectivity or backhaul for a small business or community broadcaster.