Intel has announced the Rural Connectivity Platform (RCP), a solution designed to send data as far as 60 miles to provide Wi-Fi connectivity in rural areas. That maximum distance, according to the company, is limited only by the curvature of the earth...

"Already, Intel has installed and tested the hardware in India, Panama, Vietnam, and South Africa," writes MIT Technology Review's Kate Greene. "Later this year, the company will sell the device in India, with a target price below $500. The point-to-point technology will require two nodes, which could provide full back-end infrastructure for less than $1,000."

"The key aspect that allows for the long transmission distance of the RCP system required a rewrite of the communication rules used by Wi-Fi routers," explains DailyTech's Shane McGlaun. "Typical routers used to wire homes and offices send out data and wait for an acknowledgement from the receiving system that the data arrived. If the acknowledgement isn't received in a timely manner the common wireless router send the data again assuming it was lost. The Intel RCP system does away with the need for acknowledgements and frees up more bandwidth for sending data."

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