Ubiquiti creates the first commercial 700MHz WiFi card

Talk about wishful thinking. Ubiquiti -- a maker of wireless broadband gear we last saw breaking world records -- has announced the "world's first" 700MHz WiFi card, clearly hoping to get a head start on the feeding frenzy we all expect. The XR7, as it's called, is a compact radio module, which is built for the mini-PCI Type IIIA standard, has scalable channel bandwidths of 5 / 10 / 20 and 40 MHz, and 256-bit AES security. The company claims that the card can be a viable WiMAX replacement, as it's been tested for ranges of beyond 31 miles at rates of up to 50Mbps. No word on pricing or street date, mostly -- we suspect -- due to the fact that the frequency it operates on has yet to be made available. You'll know more when we do.

[Via dailywireless]

[ubigene @ Oct 10th 2007 10:36AM]

Old news. 700 MHz cards are available for at least a year now. Besides, ordinal 811.ag card can give you "ranges of beyond 31 miles at rates of up to 50Mbps" with proper antennas.

[Froggy @ Oct 10th 2007 11:30AM]

silly man. if I wanted a nasty metal contortion in my back yard I would move to west virginia. :)

[Alexander @ Oct 10th 2007 11:58AM]

@Ubigene: As the previous commenter said, we don't want to have a giant radio tower in the backyard in order to get the 2.4GHz signal into our laptops from the nearby city. The small antennas were never designed for long ranges, and frankly they suck when it comes to anything over 70' or through walls.

The 700MHz spectrum is pretty good at that exact seneario--as evidenced by TV's and such getting pretty decent reception with 'rabbit ears' on the tops of TV's. Put a standard TV antenna on the roof (which you will have to have anyway, when TV goes digital in 2009) and then you have your internet and TV from one antenna.

[Dave @ Oct 10th 2007 10:36AM]

Sounds good :)

[bethel03 @ Oct 10th 2007 10:48AM]

31 miles huh? Wonder if the FCC tracked them down during their tests...

[Mike @ Oct 10th 2007 11:19AM]

Ok, "700 MHz cards are available for at least a year now" is a good point, touche, or sum such. But to go on saying "[original] 811.ag card[s] can give you 'ranges of beyond 31 miles at rates of up to 50Mbps' with proper antennas" is just dumb. Yes, we all know it is possible "with proper antennas" to go quite some distance with high speeds, but this thing doesn't need "proper antennas." It can just do it.

Holy hot shit. I want one...

[ubigene @ Oct 10th 2007 4:29PM]

2Mike:
"But to go on saying "[original] 811.ag card[s] can give you 'ranges of beyond 31 miles at rates of up to 50Mbps' with proper antennas" is just dumb. Yes, we all know it is possible "with proper antennas" to go quite some distance with high speeds, but this thing doesn't need "proper antennas." It can just do it."

That's what I call bullshit. Have you ever seen this card? I have _worked_ with those and I can say it's no different from ordinal Wi-Fi. Get a good antenna or you wouldn't get the range.

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 10th 2007 11:02AM]

Now for that 700Mhz antenna system...

[Baby-G @ Oct 10th 2007 11:08AM]

Husband:Honey are you using the wifi?

Wife:No honey im in the shower!

Husband:hhmmmm those access lights have been blinking tremendously for the past half hour. i wonder if that halo3 tournament down the street is doing ok.

[paloooz @ Oct 10th 2007 11:50AM]

Useless dialog.

[akatsuki @ Oct 10th 2007 1:50PM]

So we are already replacing Wimax before having had a chance to play with it?

Maybe the FCC should stop selling public assets to the highest bidder and just open it up the way the Wifi bandwidths were opened?

[Bill Seitz @ Oct 10th 2007 4:50PM]

Yes, except Congress ordered them to auction it off. Gotta cover those tax cuts...

[ubigene @ Oct 10th 2007 4:29PM]

You should take into consideration that Internet is bidirectional unicast and TV is unidirectional broadcast. Quite a difference, isn't it?

[Ben @ Oct 10th 2007 12:16PM]

So wait a minute.

I don't really understand how this is going to work.

You're telling me that these cards have 30 mile ranges? So will we be able to see THOUSANDS of wifi networks once everyone gets these cards? I live in a real urban area right north of downtown Dallas. I can only imagine that there would be 100,000+ wifi networks.

[Richard @ Oct 10th 2007 12:37PM]

Bzzzzt.

Sorry, no, it's not going to work like that.

These 700MHz cards are going to be used to connect to an ISP (or other service provider - read: Cellular/Google/etc) offering access over the 700MHz band.

Think of it as another HSDPA or other cellular access technology.

It's not going to be used for home networking, at least not in the traditional home router sense.

And at the OP:

FORTY MEGAHERTZ OF BANDWIDTH @ 700MHz????

LOL. That's the biggest use of spectrum I've seen in a lonnnng time.

[irvingpop @ Oct 10th 2007 12:42PM]

There are several huge misconceptions being bandied around here, please allow me to clear them up.


1. 700Mhz is protected spectrum. This is the frequency band that everyone keeps fighting about. Even if Google wins this spectrum and pushes its "Open Access" requirements, it doesn't mean anyone will be able to put up an AP.

2. Beware of marketing speak. You can have 30 miles OR 50MBps, not both. The actual throughput will be much lower, even outdoor 802.11a can barely push 25Mbps with high-gain point-to-point links. Actual throughput will be more like 1-3Mbps per "cell". If you don't believe me, ask any WISP running 900Mhz networks.

[t-bone @ Oct 10th 2007 1:27PM]

I am always weary of marketing-speak but it clearly says "ranges of beyond 31 miles at rates of up to 50Mbps". An either-or statement in marketing-speak like what you suggest would be "ranges of beyond 31 miles and rates of up to 50Mbps". See the difference?

[irvingpop @ Oct 10th 2007 3:53PM]

Sigh. Go ahead, believe the marketing speak instead of someone who deploys wireless networks for a living. Wireless networking company marketers wouldn't lie to you, now would they?

Also, don't get bogged down in the theoretical details, they may just bore you:
http://www.isa.org/InTechTemplate.cfm?Section=Article_Index1&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=21286

[StreetStealth @ Oct 10th 2007 1:04PM]

Wait a second, if the FCC hasn't ok'd anyone to use 700MHz yet... How did they test their prototypes?

[Juaquin @ Oct 10th 2007 1:37PM]

Companies can request to do testing - they are usually accommodated. Kind of the same idea as the iPhone not having gone through the FCC but a few people were walking around with one.

[Millhauz @ Oct 10th 2007 1:44PM]

So I can buy a card for a spectrum that is yet to find it's owner....cool

[m16 @ Oct 10th 2007 6:35PM]

give me wimax!

[Solomon @ Oct 10th 2007 11:46PM]

Everyone is arguing about range and such... I'm just impressed that they have a mini-pci card out first, before full size desktop pci, or pcmcia or usb or whatever. Usually, laptop internal devices take a while to come out...