Technology

WiHi is already taken in Japanese for WiFi. They write WiFi but can't pronounce WiFi (there is no Fi sillable), so they say WiHi. Source: I lived in Japan for a while.

They have plash speed wifi

I actually ditched 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi on my home network entirely for this exact reason. If a device is not compatible with 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi, it doesn't get purchased.

This spectrum is already on the verge of being complete trash.

Radio shouldn't be used when avoidable. It's for emergencies, aviation, hiking, short-range communication for convenience maybe. Phones - yes.

But providing internet connectivity via radio when you can lay cable is just stupid.

Nothing a hammer drill, CAT.7 cable and an access point couldn't fix.

I mean, if you insist on sitting in the fridge what do you expect!

Me too but it’s not well suited for a use case like that. Think of it for data logging and control of remote devices. Maybe you have a battery powered sensor in a field to track moisture levels, or a light switch in an outbuilding that you want to make sure is shut off without walking out there.

Similar networking that is more accessible to consumers might be Zigbee, z-wave or Thread.

Matter/Thread is the latest consumer standard, and is supported by major players like Apple and Amazon (don’t remember if Google is still on board). its strengths include standardized device type profiles (so every light switch has the same definition of off and on) and well-defined integration between Thread (local wireless mesh network) and Matter (IoT protocol over Ethernet/WiFi) making it more likely that everything works together. It has a lot of potential, but has been slow to roll out.

Hell yes. Perhaps an interconnected network of mesh nodes could become an alternative FOSS internet within our lifetimes.

What are you talking about?

This is not about streaming to a laptop or Internet access. This is about a long range, low power, low bandwidth network using 2.4GHz. It's using 2.4GHz, like everyone else likes to, because it's the "free" signal band that you don't have to pay to license. It's for sending the message "Sprinkler head 1039A is leaking" from a solar panel powered transmitter without having to run a data cable or network repeaters.

It's competition for Zigbee/Z-Wave/Matter. Not the herald of the ISP crackdown Armageddon.

And when that happens, it’s not that features like fiber to the home or port forwarding are gone, but they could be locked behind an extra fee. Want direct access to your own network settings? That might come at a premium. Even access to certain websites could become conditional on paying more, or worse, dictated by someone else’s agenda.

They can do that right now. If this new wireless option is standardized, it would seem less prone to ISP shenanigans to me. Just a question whatever functionality makes it into the standard in the first place.

Laptops with Ethernet are still pretty common. I just bought one recently. At work, we buy a lot of them. But I don't think smartphones ever had integrated wired networking.

But that aside, what you're describing is already happening. Wireless network deployments are much, much cheaper than running wire to each building. In semi-rural areas, WiSPs are pretty common. And 5G for home Internet access is pretty common in high-coverage areas. And as time goes on, the ISP-provided equipment is more locked down.

But I don't think those things are related.

I think the article is explaining that this is really just modifying wifi protocols to work over LoRa, to reduce LoRa costs.

This will probably only be beneficial to people currently using LoRa.