Researchers extend Wi-Fi range through software alone

Wi-Fi tech has advanced quickly since it went mainstream in the early 2000s. But anyone in a busy apartment complex or a big house can tell you that wireless still has a long way to go. Now, thanks to researchers at Brigham Young University, it seems like exactly that will happen. With software alone, the researchers have managed to extend the wireless range of a router by more than 60 meters-almost 220 feet.

The researchers are calling the protocol "On-Off Noise Power Communication," or the ONPC protocol. That's a killer acronym. Wi-Fi requires a base speed of at least one megabit per second to keep a steady signal. BYU's protocol can keep a signal going off of one bit per second.

If you're paying attention, you've probably noticed that one bit isn't very much. This protocol improves wireless range but not wireless speed. It won't be suitable for things like phones, tablets, or laptops. Instead, ONPC is meant to augment the many ambient wireless devices around the modern home-the Internet of Things. Wi-Fi-connected sensors don't need a full megabit of bandwidth to get their work done, so an IoT sensor at the edge of your property could still connect with this protocol despite being far away from the router.

The tech works by sending wireless noise, essentially. Many IoT devices have little more to say than that they're on or off, open or closed; that kind of information takes up very little space. ONPC is a wireless signal that is just strong enough for the router to distinguish it from general wireless noise around it.

Photo by Misha Feshchak on Unsplash

This technology doesn't require any additional hardware, but it does require a software update. Our routers won't support it as-is. But it wouldn't be surprising to see the protocol picked up by major router manufacturers and rolled out to flagship router models. And then there are the open-source firmware suites like DD-WRT that will almost certainly see ONPC adopted once it's commercially available.

The team claims that the ONPC protocol might also be portable to other wireless protocols like cellular and Bluetooth. The researchers haven't talked about how this signal functions in heavy-noise environments, though. The amount of wireless noise in an apartment is probably very different from that at even a University research lab; busier and more chaotic. Even so, an additional 67 meters of range off of software alone is nothing to sneeze at.

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