Gigabit WiFi: Aereo: Starry: Chet Kanojia

Aereo founder takes on ISPs with millimeter wave wireless internet

Starry aims to deliver broadband-level wireless internet to your home with tech used by the military.

Aereo dared to take on the broadcast industry by streaming over-the-air TV channels on the internet -- that is, until the Supreme Court ruled that its technology was illegal. Now that company's founder, Chet Kanojia, is taking on yet another established industry: Internet service providers. Today at a New York City launch event he unveiled Starry, the first consumer company to use millimeter wave technology to deliver wireless internet access. Up until now, that's been a technology mainly used by the military for radar and other purposes. .......

Kanojia claims Starry's network, which runs in the 38Ghz unlicensed wireless band, will be able to deliver gigabit speeds to homes wirelessly for far less than traditional broadband. There also won't be any data caps.

........ 70 percent of Americans have no choice when it comes to their home ISP, while 20 percent don't have any access to broadband at all. ...... The underlying technology behind Starry isn't new -- the military has been using it for decades -- but it's never been used for a widespread consumer product before. Starry has the potential to be as groundbreaking as Aereo, I'm just hoping it sticks around longer.

The founder of Aereo is promising to bring gigabit internet to every home

as it attempts to leverage unlicensed bands of spectrum. ...... Kanojia wants to deliver extremely high-speed internet over the air using millimeter waves, which don't travel very far and aren't very good at penetrating obstacles — not even water in the air. ........ Starry will need to set up broadcast points in very close proximity to its customers or use some sort of mesh technology to improve its reach. ...... "What are millimeter waves you ask? It’s a little bit like witchcraft," Kanojia says. The company keeps repeating a dense list of technologies — OFDM modulation, MU-MIMO, active phased array — which apparently add up to a solution. Kanojia acknowledges that no one has attempted internet delivery over millimeter waves before because it's difficult to get a connection from outside to inside of a house. But Starry has supposedly figured out a way to "steer" the signal using a bank of tiny antennas that increase the connection's power and accuracy. "People historically assumed fiber was the answer at all times," Kanojia says. Starry's approach, he claims, is "the most meaningful, scalable architecture anyone has proposed to this point." ........ it's difficult for new competitors to enter the space. Laying wires is expensive, as is launching a more traditional wireless network, so Kanojia is once again in charge of a company taking an unconventional approach in an attempt to quickly enter and disrupt an established market. ...... Millimeter wave won’t go through a window

What is Starry? An Internet service and router unlike anything else

Super high-speed Internet can be beamed to your home with millimeter waves. Bridget Carey explains Starry and its helpful (but pricey) Wi-Fi hub. Also: Facebook is ending the Like as we know it.

The same technology that scans through your clothes at the airport can bring you Internet service.

@ckanojia This is mind blowing awesome! https://t.co/EKN4krT7h0 #starry

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) January 28, 2016