Faster Wireless
So, just to keep on a theme, yet another potentially disruptive technology will be coming our way next year. A group of 27 technology companies have agreed to a new standard for the “Wi-Fi” networking standard. The versions of Wi-Fi that we use at home, classrooms, and Starbucks ranges in speed from roughly five to fifty megabits per second. This newest version (802.11n, if you’re keeping score) will be somewhere between one hundred and five hundred megabits. That’s fast enough to stream high quality video, or just send a lot of data.
In a school environment, this speed of data transmission would open up a lot of options. Many of the network-based applications and services that schools use don’t work well over the current wireless standards because of speed issues. This level of bandwidth will (hopefully) get around this, allowing for network-based instructional materials to be available at any place in the school. Combined with broadband over power lines, we’re going to be living the Star Trek lifestyle in no time. Hopefully, it won’t end up being everywhere except school.