This was just an idea I had, but me not being radio inclined, I wanted to see if it was even possible.

A guy I know pays for Verizon city-wide wireless broadband, it's pretty cool. He can get online anywhere. However, it is just expensive.

I was wondering if it would be possible(nevermind the expense, just if it was possible) to take your wireless router and hook it up to a bad-ass transmitter, which would put out the signal on a way higher level, effectively allowing you to access your home wifi connection from anywhere in, say, a 5 or 10 mile radius.

Or maybe a little simpler, if there was a way to boost the output of your wireless router so you had larger coverage.

Obviously, you'd want to encrypt the network so you didn't have hundreds of people stealing off your AP, but is the basic idea even possible?

And, if so, what aspects of the field will I have to learn to do so?

I was wondering if it would be possible(nevermind the expense, just if it was possible) to take your wireless router and hook it up to a bad-ass transmitter, which would put out the signal on a way higher level, effectively allowing you to access your home wifi connection from anywhere in, say, a 5 or 10 mile radius.


You'd need an improved transmitter on both ends, not just the router's. The router has to receive transmissions from all the other machines trying to connect to it, too, and it just won't receive anything of note from that distance without a pretty good amplifier on the client end.

Most city-wide systems use repeaters, or in the alternative more powerful transmitter cards.

Aye, both ends need to be badass and upgraded, and good antennas are important. Parabolic antenna at your end(easy to convert a TV satellite dish to a 2.4gHz wireless one), and a good tall omni-directional at your house should work.

I don't see why it wouldn't work, although..Having that strong of equipment might interfere with other people's networks. WiFi only has 11 channels.

hay rabbi :)

double check on what they mean by broadband.. thats been magically redefined by the scum ceo's to mean anything more than 56k.

what the fon cos do up here is claim they have wireless broadband in the area.. BUT that is ONLY if you happen to be near a newer *digital* tower.. or else.. guess what..

you'll be lucky to get 14k, because it is the old analog system.

also sat dishes are really only for pin pointing a 'hot spot'.. lets say, Joe's Coffee Shop within several miles (line of sight, bearing no major physical objects are in the way).

transmitting like you want would definitely need to be omni-directional.. or should be.. so you wouldn't have to 'hunt' for your single constantly when you move.

but.. if you have city wide net access.. or other ways to connect when away from home.. you really don't need your own transmitter/receiver system.. because you have the net...via vpn or whatever.

try t&t or ns&h toooo.

Actually Halvy, IIRC Congress just had a big issue about defining "broadband". The FCC defines it as anything over 200kbps. :-) I agree with you, I hate the way companies are billing everything over 56k as "high-speed". Well, I guess once you get close to the demarc, almost all transmissions are baseband and not broadband... :-p

@OP: packet radio may be a viable solution for you. Look it up.