They could indeed do this. But the coverage would be far smaller than that of cellular, for several reasons:
- there are power limitations on 802.11 that are probably a lot lower than those allowed for cellular;
- even if you boost power on the base station side, you still have the problem of the terminals with low power, pretty average sensitivity and no directionality.
On top of that, you have the issue that you have a limited number of channels (check out how many channels GSM can use, and how many timeslots are available per channel, and compare that with 802.11b... You'll find out that you don't want to have large cells!).
Note that the Vivato switch thing (using lots of directional antennas which allow for higher power) is a step in that direction, but I would be interested to find out the maximum beam width allowed (and hence the number of antennas and radios to cover 360 degrees) to stay under the "directional" FCC rules... And of course this doesn't apply in ETSI-regulated countries.
Jacques.
At 22:01 12/03/2003, joe howarth wrote:
what is to stop a carrier from putting 802 AP's, with directional antennae (or use existing antennae) at their cell (aka cellpone) sites. maybe with power amp to boost signal.
wouldnt this create huge wireless "cells"?
or, is it functionally impossible? <insert spoonie love voice here> "why not?"
-joe
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