According to a New York Times article (free subscription required) a pair of Silicon Valley techies have developed a “software-designed radio,” which has permitted them to create an inexpensive 802.11b repeater antenna that can be attached to the outside of a customer’s home.
Etherlinx uses an inexpensive wireless standard to transmit Internet data. Their ambitious plan threatens to shake the near-monopoly that the cable and phone companies hold on high-speed access.
Without venture capital backing, in a garage just six blocks from the garage where Steven P. Jobs and Stephen Wozniak launched Apple Computer 26 years ago, Mr. Holt is making his clever and inexpensive radio repeater by modifying inexpensive Wi-Fi cards, the circuitry that sends and receives the signals.
