Wi-FM: You may not have heard about this, but I like the idea so much that I just last week interviewed it’s inventor, Mr. Aleksander Kuzmanovic of Northwestern U. on Wi-Fi NOW TV (you can watch the episode below).
Yes, nearly all of us living in high-rises or densely-populated areas have the same problem: Dozens of Wi-Fi SSIDs competing pumping out requests trying to get access to the same airwaves. The result is lots of collisions and bad & slow Wi-Fi. Enter Wi-FM.
Here’s basically what Wi-FM does: It’s a dead simple fix to bad Wi-Fi that uses FM broadcast radio signals as a ‘clock’ to schedule Wi-Fi transmissions. Here are some of the reasons why I like it:
It’s passive: It uses the RDS (digital FM signals that are used to broadcast traffic or weather info on FM radio) as the ‘clock’ to synch multiple Wi-Fi devices and routers. And as you will know, FM radio signals are pretty much everywhere indoors and out.
It’s unobtrusive: It changes no part of the Wi-Fi protocols because it works – in a sense – a layer above what’s already there. It doesn’t even need to be everywhere, but the more devices that use it, the better the result.
It will be a cheap fix: A lot (if not all) smartphones have FM radio receivers built into their chipset even though it may not be available on the phone as such. On the AP side, the inventors are pushing a dirt cheap USB-stick FM receiver that will allow the AP to use this sync.
Watch my interview below:
/Claus.
