IEEE 802.11 family of standards is about to get a major upgrade. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the group that brought us the IEEE 802.11 standards a.k.a WLAN or Wi-Fi, recently published the IEEE 802.22TM standard. IEEE 802.22 called Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRAN) that will provide broadband access to wide regional areas anywhere in the world.

IEEE 802.22 (WRAN) will use the same technology that is being use on VHF and UHF TV broadcast and will provide broadband wireless connection to a large area up to 100 km from the transmitter, that’s as large as Quezon City or 10 times the size of Boracay. IEEE 802.22 (WRAN) will use the so-called white spaces between the occupied TV channels and will have a connection speed up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with the reception of existing TV broadcast signal.

This is perfect for densely populated area like rural areas, and developing countries like the Philippines, where broadcast TV signal are strong and not covered by ISP.

For more information on IEEE 802.22 (WRAN) you can click here and here.

Article first published as IEEE 802.22 (WRAN): Broadband wireless connection for the whole city on Technorati.