WEBVTT

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Wireless internet that goes 830 miles or over 1300 kilometers if you're not American or British

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Amazing, but how is this possible believe it or not? This distance was a world record set by using a protocol called

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Lorawan after trackers were installed on a fishing boat off the coast of Portugal and connected to a gateway in the Canary Islands

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They were able to do this partly because Lorawan uses relatively low frequencies around approximately the 900 megahertz mark for comparison

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Most standard Wi-Fi connections use either 2.4 or 5 or 6 gigahertz frequencies due to the laws of physics

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Lower frequency signals can travel farther and bend around obstacles more effectively and penetrate through them

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But even so the amount of data that a signal can carry

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Decreases as the frequency gets lower and the signal travels farther. So let's be a little more realistic

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What kinds of distances and speeds can you really expect with a 900 megahertz connection?

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Well in addition to Lorawan, there's also a Wi-Fi standard called halo for which devices have just started to hit the market

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The ranges are a little bit different Lorawan can get around 5 kilometers in a city and about 10 in a more rural area where there aren't as many structures to block the signal

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However, Lorawan speeds are very low

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Very low We're talking only as fast as a dial-up connection under ideal circumstances often lower than that

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Halo on the other hand has a shorter range of about one kilometer though

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We can reach farther under good conditions where you have a clear line of sight

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Realistically speeds can range from about 150 kilobits per second to around 15

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Megabits per second depending on how far away you are and any obstructions in the signal's path

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Though the theoretical maximums are higher So what exactly is the point of having long range internet if it's so slow if we're talking about the

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Insanely slow speeds of Lorawan it turns out there are plenty of devices out there that don't need much bandwidth at all

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Think about a moisture sensor that a farmer wants to check without having to go out into the fields

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Tracking of mass transit buses or even radiation sensors in nuclear plants that can penetrate through thick layers of concrete

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Additionally Amazon sidewalk network that uses echo and ring products to link IOT devices like sensors and smart lights

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Uses Lorawan so that the signal can cover longer distances and before you helium people start freak now. Yes helium crypto

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Yes, that's Lorawan 2 and because you don't need much electrical power to move such small amounts of data

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There are Lorawan devices that can run off batteries for many years before needing to be replaced

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Halo's faster speeds though mean that it can be used for applications other than just IOT

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Although these speeds are still obviously much slower than the average internet connection

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They're still fast enough to complete simple tasks and even video calls at long ranges

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This was actually shown recently in a test conducted by the company Morse micro

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Which maintained a one megabit per second speed over a distance of three kilometers even with urban interference. This is cool

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It's cool, but most typical client devices don't use the halo protocol. So what could this mean for you?

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Well, there are wireless bridge kits that you can buy to send a halo signal from one location

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Receive it in another and then convert it to a more common Wi-Fi standard that client devices like PCs and phones can use

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So while it obviously won't replace a regular home Wi-Fi connection and is still primarily more for IOT

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It could help with basic connectivity in rural areas without much wired infrastructure

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Or if you're just rich have a huge tract of land and want to throw a bone to the peasants staying in the guest house

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This is the protocol for you. So thanks for watching guys

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If you like this video, maybe you want to step back and see just what is a modem and a switch and a router anyway

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What's the difference? We got a video on that check it out