WiPeta: the future of wireless

The city of the future will have a single wireless network that will unify all of its communication systems, from text-messaging to video phones and television broadcasting, as well as a host of broad-band services that are, at present, no more than twinkles in the eyes of forward-thinking engineers.

Imagine the city is divided into hexagonal regions. At the centre of each region is a wireless internet access point. These access points have a range of about 25-150 metres, so the cells would be approximately 50-300 metres wide. In high-rise areas, the grid would of course be three-dimensional: for example, if I were chatting on the phone as I ride an elevator from street-level to the hundredth floor, I might find that my call goes through as many as six different access points—the call being handed from one to the other every twenty floors or so. Walking along the street, I’ll cross from one access point to another every block or so—but my TV reception, or my phone call, or whatever, will go on just as smoothly as if I were standing still.

The main features of a WiPeta

To make this work, we need a new kind of wireless access point: a device that connects anything and everything to the internet. I call it a WiPeta (pronounced “wee-peeta”). On the face of it, a WiPeta does what a cellphone base station does, but there are some very important differences.

• It has a very broad bandwidth, which allows it to simultaneously satisfy dozens of people, taking care of their electronic newspapers, their mobile TV sets, their mobile phones, their instant text-, voice-, or video-messages, and anything else they happen to need.
• It is a wireless mesh network node, in which message packets hop from node to node until they reach their destination.
• It pumps out far less radiation than a present-day cellular site, which is why it has a fairly short range.
• It’s extremely economical, which is important because even a small city needs hundreds of them to build a city-wide network.
• A WiPeta is a standardised device—every single one of the hundreds of WiPetas in a typical urban network would be absolutely identical: which means they are interchangeable.
• And finally, anyone can instal a WiPeta.

What makes these things so easy to install is that external wiring is not essential. Their batteries are charged by solar cells, so if there’s no wall outlet nearby, no problem. And because the messages hop from WiPeta to WiPeta, the way I cross a stream by leaping from rock to stone to boulder, it isn’t necessary to connect them all into the fixed network. As long as one is hooked in to the ’net, the system’s up and running. Of course, the more WiPetas you plug in to the ’net, the more capacity your network will have—but it’s not essential to plug them in. Upgrading the network is a snap. All you do is add more WiPetas. No technician required.

What WiPetas will do

WiPetas will make just about all existing radio communications systems obsolete. Besides keeping us in touch and entertained, they’ll replace the crude radio links that warn us of natural hazards such as floods or tsunamis, and they’ll handle communications for public safety agencies such as cops and firefighters. If it all turns to custard, disaster management folks will use standard WiPetas mounted on tripods or Humvees to establish special communications networks, or to fill the gaps in existing ones. Suppose, for example, a mudslide wipes out your village’s network. Simple: fly over the area in a chopper, dropping WiPetas on a grid pattern. OK, you need to mount each Wipeta on a base that resembles a self-righting doll, and fit it with a parachute or airbags; and you’d better not drop it on anyone’s head—but think about how quickly the communication system can be repaired. WiPetas will save lives, you can bet on that!

WiPetas will be found aboard ships and pleasure boats, where they’ll serve two functions: first, when the boat is at sea, the WiPeta(s) will provide a ship-board network linked to the ’net over the maritime satellite system. In port, the shipboard WiPeta’s will simply adapt themselves to the shore-side network, providing everyone on board the ship with normal urban communications and entertainment capabilities.

Apart from a bit of extra sheilding to protect against radiation, Wipetas should work great on the Moon. There, as in wilderness areas, they will shuffle messages to a central network node (a microwave link back to earth), like schoolgirls playing hopscotch. And since setting up a network is as easy as chucking a Wipeta off the back of a Moonrover every two or three hundred metres, Moon explorers will never be more than a phone call away.

There is only one existing radio system that won’t use WiPetas: the aviation communication system. Aircraft at normal cruising altitudes will be out of range of WiPetas mounted on even the tallest buildings, and so airlines and air-forces will continue to use traditional HF, VHF, and UHF radios. But the aviation industry will take over all the frequencies vacated when everyone else goes on the ’net, courtesy of WiPetas.

It is possible to build a WiPeta today, using readily available components. Long-term, we’ll need wider bandwidth than is available with current wireless devices. The rest of the technology is commercially available right now.

What does a WiPeta look like?

Shaped like an upside-down bowl, about 60cm in diameter and about 20-30 cm high.

What’s in a WiPeta?

Inside the cylindrical housing are several subsystems:

• Battery
• Solar panel
• Wireless internet access point (or “mesh node”) with electronically controlled antenna
• Wireless supervisory system *
• Receiver for emergency beacons
• Connector and interface for optional external network connection
• Connector and interface for optional external power source

Although WiPetas are vastly superior to any present-day system, the underlying technology is fairly simple. As I get time, I’ll publish more information about the WiPeta: what it looks like, what’s inside it, how it works, and how you go about setting up a network of WiPetas.

Don’t be surprised if devices that look very much like WiPetas begin appearing in you neighbourhood. It’s obvious from the very rapid take-up of cellular telephones and other wireless gadgets that lots of people want this kind of network. For many people, it can’t come soon enough.

To report WiPeta sightings—send me an email

* The supervisory system includes a receiver for a positioning system such as GPS

Relevant technologies

Wireless mesh network (Wikipedia).
Not a very good diagram, I'm afraid, but this article gives a good description of the workings of a WePeta network

Funkfeuer—an experimental wireless network that could use couple dozen WiPetas

IEEE 802.11s (Wikipedia)