got a business idea well i say that its just an idea but can telephone masts be used for wifi ? must be similar technonolgy right ? still reading a lot into it ! can this equipment be bought ? and also do mobile phone masts act like repeaters or are the wired ?
telephone masts ?
- Thread starter on31ll
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Soldato
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I'm oot.
Which masts are we talking about. I think I'm thinking about completely the wrong thing lol.
Caporegime
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bad picture of a node B: http://www.umtsworld.com/technology/ran/images/LucentOneBTS_nodeB.jpg
picture of the tower you link them to: http://www.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/large_610x456_scaled/photos/36767.jpg
I don't have a picture of how stupid the telcos would have to be to suggest that they would be willing to put a competing service on their own tower without you giving them ALL your money.*
Telco masts are linked by wireless transmission and cable links in a variety of ways with a typical star/hub network approach although some points can be multi-chained. Just remember - the big 5 spend in excess of £1M a day to keep the network running.
* Although we will share masts with each other because coverage is the golden goose and everyone wins
picture of the tower you link them to: http://www.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/large_610x456_scaled/photos/36767.jpg
I don't have a picture of how stupid the telcos would have to be to suggest that they would be willing to put a competing service on their own tower without you giving them ALL your money.*
Telco masts are linked by wireless transmission and cable links in a variety of ways with a typical star/hub network approach although some points can be multi-chained. Just remember - the big 5 spend in excess of £1M a day to keep the network running.
* Although we will share masts with each other because coverage is the golden goose and everyone wins
Thanks a lot myshra !
Its a streaming idea but its not based in the uk ! It was a genuine question so don't no why it was greeted with responses like that ! I was hoped to be pointed in the right direction because I don't think there are many telephone mast forums are there ? X
Its a streaming idea but its not based in the uk ! It was a genuine question so don't no why it was greeted with responses like that ! I was hoped to be pointed in the right direction because I don't think there are many telephone mast forums are there ? X
it was greeted with the responses it was because it wasn't a particularly well formed question.
Am I reading this correctly:
"Can the masts used by mobile telephone operators also be used to transmit WiFi signals?"
Assuming that is the case, then I would hazard a guess that it would be fairly difficult for a number of reasons:
1) They are privately owned and maintained by the providers (at least here)
2) Mobile phone masts will be equipped with transmitters and receivers geared towards microwaves rather than the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz radio waves of WiFi, I would also hazard a guess that their dispersal pattern will be very different to the optimal needed for WiFi as their target is frankly quite different!
However I guess if you could get space on the mast then you could attach an appropriate WiFi antennae pointed in the right direction (if patch, which it would be for long distance)...
Alternatively, if you're asking whether mobile data networks can be used to transmit "WiFi", then no, WiFi is simply a way to transmit packets of data, and mobile networks have their own systems to do this. To get in on that game, you would need to setup your own cellular network or do as other companies do and resell a portion of an existing network.
Did I get anywhere near your actual question? If not, please re-phrase and i'll give it another stab
Sorry manic man it wasn't well formed and I wasn't trying to sound hostile in my response! I basically want to stream media over huge distance ! So maybe like a really large repeater ! But I was just seeing how they work as I thought masts send signals over fairly large distances and most phones now use the internet as such ! Sorry for the stupid question !
Heres one major kicker you would need to overcome......Assuming you get permission to use the wireless towers to strap on a massive wifi dish so that you can transmit a signal out, surely the mobile phone will under no circumstances be powerful enough to send a signal back to the tower without making the phone the size of the radios that were used in WW2?
Also, are BT not already doing something similar when they are adding WiFi to their telephone boxes? Maybe your looking at the wrong item to strap wireless access points to, surely getting permission to fit it in say the london underground would be more commercially viable for both yourself and the company your wanting to use the system in conjunction with?
Also, are BT not already doing something similar when they are adding WiFi to their telephone boxes? Maybe your looking at the wrong item to strap wireless access points to, surely getting permission to fit it in say the london underground would be more commercially viable for both yourself and the company your wanting to use the system in conjunction with?
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I have met a few people who deal in rural WiFi installations over the past few years. So they mainly install setups in places where good broadband isn't available neither is any cabling.
In those cases, using small building mounted masts, and well placed antennae, as well as some boosters (last guy i met had some not technically legal in the UK 1w boosters for example) a 15dB patch aerial could transmit about 3km with line of sight. Using this, he would create a patchwork that let him share a single connection to a few rural houses that didn't even have phonelines.
Now i'm sure you could in theory do this on a larger scale, but the problem you have is that because WiFi uses radio waves, without massively boosting the signal it's tough to get it to travel over massive distances (hence mobile phones use microwaves I would guess!), and in most countries, only the military is allowed to boost radio transmissions above a very specific level. How high this is, will depend entirely on your local authorities.
They can of course be daisy chained, as you put it, its simply a case of one station receiving a signal and relaying it (routing it) to the correct station, but we really are talking proper line of site stuff here, a small mountain in the way and boom, your radio waves are absorbed and the signal is lost.
Personally I don't know any commercial infrastructures you could "hire" out for this purpose in the UK, even "hotspots" are very localised to cover specific busy areas, very much like a building is WiFi enabled i.e. repeaters placed in most rooms all wired together using ethernet. However, whether that is the case where you are, then I don't know!
EDIT: Also, just to re-iterate the above is totally true. Mobile phones have a small patch aerial in them usually, giving them a roughly 60degree "conical" range emanating from the back of the device (some will have small omni's i guess, but the range will still be 100 meters at very best) To get an idea, just get hold of an off the shelf 10dB omni aerial to see the size (think WW2 walkie talkie aerial). So while the device would be able to receive assuming your infrastructure, it wouldn't be able to send back, and unfortunately most communication protocols these days are of the guaranteed service type, even UDP wouldn't help as your device wouldn't even be able to handshake in amongst all its lost packets.
To give you an idea, I have managed to get a remote control vehicle to receive VERY patchy WiFi from a powerful 1W boosted mahoosive aerial (on military ground I should add... so it was legal) up to about 1km away with a 10dB omni aerial attached to it. And even then i struggled to get enough throughput to receive 100kb images every 10 seconds...
In those cases, using small building mounted masts, and well placed antennae, as well as some boosters (last guy i met had some not technically legal in the UK 1w boosters for example) a 15dB patch aerial could transmit about 3km with line of sight. Using this, he would create a patchwork that let him share a single connection to a few rural houses that didn't even have phonelines.
Now i'm sure you could in theory do this on a larger scale, but the problem you have is that because WiFi uses radio waves, without massively boosting the signal it's tough to get it to travel over massive distances (hence mobile phones use microwaves I would guess!), and in most countries, only the military is allowed to boost radio transmissions above a very specific level. How high this is, will depend entirely on your local authorities.
They can of course be daisy chained, as you put it, its simply a case of one station receiving a signal and relaying it (routing it) to the correct station, but we really are talking proper line of site stuff here, a small mountain in the way and boom, your radio waves are absorbed and the signal is lost.
Personally I don't know any commercial infrastructures you could "hire" out for this purpose in the UK, even "hotspots" are very localised to cover specific busy areas, very much like a building is WiFi enabled i.e. repeaters placed in most rooms all wired together using ethernet. However, whether that is the case where you are, then I don't know!
EDIT: Also, just to re-iterate the above is totally true. Mobile phones have a small patch aerial in them usually, giving them a roughly 60degree "conical" range emanating from the back of the device (some will have small omni's i guess, but the range will still be 100 meters at very best) To get an idea, just get hold of an off the shelf 10dB omni aerial to see the size (think WW2 walkie talkie aerial). So while the device would be able to receive assuming your infrastructure, it wouldn't be able to send back, and unfortunately most communication protocols these days are of the guaranteed service type, even UDP wouldn't help as your device wouldn't even be able to handshake in amongst all its lost packets.
To give you an idea, I have managed to get a remote control vehicle to receive VERY patchy WiFi from a powerful 1W boosted mahoosive aerial (on military ground I should add... so it was legal) up to about 1km away with a 10dB omni aerial attached to it. And even then i struggled to get enough throughput to receive 100kb images every 10 seconds...
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The idea is streaming media to the likes of mobile phones, handhelds and laptops ! But using wifi is the way I see of doing this ! Maybe using signals to create a intranet as such for people to view the media ! But its sending the signal for people to "connect" that's baffleing me !
Perhaps you need to consider Peer 2 Peer networking and maybe try and make the phones themselves into hotspots, it won't work much of the time though as it would require at least one in the network to be able to receive your stream, and you would need to be in range of another device, not to mention needing people to turn their WiFi on to receive only your streams (most phones turn off any 3G capability when WiFi is enabled)