Intel (News - Alert) has announced its plans for a new Wi-Fi router that is capable of sending signals to distances currently unheard of - as long as 60 miles. This wireless technology, called Rural Connectivity Platform (RCP), helps in providing Internet access to remote areas in developing regions where the need for Internet connectivity is increasing but practical difficulties make it difficult and expensive to lay cables.

"What [RCP] really allows us to do is get a solid connection at 30 to 60 kilometers, which is a much more realistic distance to get a good, solid connection," Jeff Galinovsky,a senior platform manager at Intel, said in an InternetNews.com report.

Specialized software in RCP helps achieve the desired distance. The technology has already been tested in India, Panama, South Africa and Vietnam and is expected to carry a price tag of around $500 for a single router.

"That's a big deal where you don't have a lot of people to support the cost of deployment for a WiMAX tower," Galinovsky said. "It does provide a solution to a problem that a lot of folks believe is quite real, and that is an inability to connect relatively rural users," he told InternetNews.com. "It's inexpensive, uses a standards-based kit, and it's going to be relatively cheap on the client side." Intel plans to sell the product later this year.

A package consisting of 2 routers can ensure point-to-point connectivity. The cost for the Wi-Fi platform is much less than other technologies like WiMax, which are also being actively pursued by many firms including Intel. Another advantage of Wi-Fi technology over WiMax is that providing Wi-Fi connectivity is far easier. Unlike WiMax, Wi-Fi does not need governmental permission. This technology also has the capacity to auto repair itself and eliminates the need for technicians to travel to remote sites to fix the problem.

Typically, wireless routers cater to distances less than 400 feet. Intel uses a modified version of the 802.11a/b/g protocols along with PDMA technology to achieve longer distances. Combining 802.11 technologies with PDMA yields the "secret sauce" that makes two RCP towers' signal travel so far, Galinovsky said.

"That's coupled with the technologies we invented for PDMA to do slotted communication, where we give each other a turn to talk because we know we're the only two on the network," he said. "So we can get longer distances and still keep the high bandwidth." However, currently Intel does not support 802.11n but plans to support the protocol once the industry specifications are laid out.

"Right now, we're at the stage of showing what it can do, which is a pretty common occurrence with wireless technologies," Michael King, research director with Gartner (News - Alert) said. "You start showing what it can do, then start to ratchet it down because you don't want to be on the ragged edge of that stuff."

However, one limitation of the platform proposed by Intel is that it cannot achieve the desired distance if there is any obstruction between the two towers. Intel plans to set up relay towers as a workaround to this problem.

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Radhika Raghunath is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

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