The Radio Pages

Wireless Devices and the End of Radio

There are at least two scenarios that follow the Wireless Networking Bubble to its logical extremes. They both spring from the apparently infinite desire of the information electronics industry to provide us with wireless networking of our faucets, geraniums, paperweights, etc.

Both scenarios make use of the heterodyne principle. One says that as you have more and more wireless devices using the RF spectrum, the resulting mix of signals will cause background noise to rise dramatically, rendering useless all weak-signal technology (such as AM and shortwave radio). Taken to the extreme, this theory says that eventually there will be so many fundamental signals and mixing products that every home will become the center of an RF traffic jam, and that will in turn limit bandwidth, which will cause devices to run slower, which will cause them to need more airtime to do their jobs, which will in turn mean more RF traffic...

The other scenario is more serious, and although it may sound like a scare tactic being used by the wire makers, probably needs to be seriously addressed. This second case points out that the intensity of the RF field produced by a wireless device, and hence the amount of radiation exposure the consumer (you) receives from such a device, varies inversely with the square of the distance from the device. In other words, the closer you get to a wireless device, the more likely it is to be a radiation hazard, and the effect gets much more intense as you get very close. Twice as close means four times as much radiation. According to this scenario, when you have twenty devices, all working and heterodyning products with each other, it becomes very, very, difficult to predict where unsafe "hot spots" of radiation might occur in the home.


Back to The Radio Pages home page.