Attenuation and repeaters

[SlightScope]

Hello

 

I am studying computer science in school and our current chapter involves networking. The book compared wireless to wired networks and the advantages and disadvantages to each. One of the comparisons was that wireless networks have a greater attenuation than wired networks but their need for repeaters is less. 

 

Could someone please explain to me why this is? One would assume that a wireless network would need more repeaters as the attenuation is greater. 

 

Regards

[jeffmeyer5295]

Well, with wireless it uses a flux capacitor to increase the flow of diggaprominator signal to a device, whereas hard wire connection counts on a GFH(gigaboot floppy hotbot), thus the wireless has better attenuation. 

[Catsrules]

I don't consider myself to be qualified to answer this question but I will anyways ;).

 

From my understand attenuation is absorbing the wireless signal (aka blocking it). For example if you have a building that is a material that will absorb or block a Wifi signal like concrete you will need to put more access points compared to a building made up of wood and drywall.

Not sure why they are calling these repeaters in the wireless networking world repeaters aren't that common, you really just want access points that have a wired back end.

They could be talking about long distance wireless where they uses an antenna that sends the signal in one direction, in those cases you repeaters are more common. You have attenuation from the air and obstacles in the way of the two sites.    

[brwainer]

If talking about very long range PtP or PtMP communication, and we are comparing wireless to copper based wired, then yes for a given long distance link you will need less "repeaters" for wireless than for wired. Example, microwave wireless versus coax or telephone cables. Microwave might have a single-link range of 30km (with tall enough towers) but the copper line might have a max range of a few km. But then when you add in fiber to the comparison, the max link distance goes out to hundreds of kilometers - a standard single mode 10Gb SFP can do 10km links reliably, and then you can go to specialized equipment.