WiFi conquers Andes
It really seems that need is the greatest motivation of them all. It seems that a group of researchers, lead by Ermanno Pietrosemoli, based in Venezuela have developed on the existing WiFi standards and technologies in order to successfully transmit signal over a distance of 382Km . The catch is they used special quality components provided by Intel, especially of long-range WiFi connections.
Pietrosemoli is the president of the networking school of Latin America, and as such he conducted the research that climaxed with the connection between El Aguila and Platillon Mountain, both in Venezuela in the Andes mountains. This was achieved by focusing the signal from the emitter to the receiver instead of broadcasting signal in all directions as normal WiFi does. There are some disadvantages such as low transfer speed (the achieved something around 3MB/s ), and the fact that the emitter and receiver must be exactly aligned. Also if something like trees buildings or other objects come between they might interrupt the connection.
As I'm sure you've already guessed it will take some time before such enormous WiFi distances will become available to us, so don't hold your breath on this one just yet 
Terry C. Ray writes articles on topics such as Wi fi Software Tools and Wi fi Protected Access Visit WiFi conquers Andes.
