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17 Qorvo 2020 the past and more often needs repeaters–this is one of the motivators for distributed Wi-Fi, or mesh Wi-Fi. This same relationship holds true for Zigbee ("low power Wi-Fi"). It essentially gets the same range as Wi-Fi, at a low data rate, but with significantly lower power, thereby achieving a very long battery life. There is a fourth element in this equation, also based on physics, that we might be less aware of in our daily lives. That element is frequency. Higher frequencies reduce range or require higher power to achieve the same range. But higher frequencies have the advantages of more bandwidth and, thus, higher data rates. This explains the tendency for higher data rates to "look for" higher frequencies. The newest versions of Wi-Fi are in the 60GHz frequency band, with targets up to 100Gb/s (.11ay). Back to the Radios Present in Phones and Laptops Clearly a lot more can be said about this, but to a large extent, these parameters are the reasons you have three radios in your phone. One radio (LTE) to get the range to connect to the closest base station in your neighborhood; one radio (Wi-Fi) to get performance when you are at home or in the office; and one radio (Bluetooth®) to enable short- range connectivity to the small devices that you carry with you, like your phone headset or your Fitbit. Why, then, do laptops and tablets usually only have two radios? There is a logical answer, but we must also understand a bit of history. A Brief History: the Technology Players In a relatively short period of time, we have seen three new technologies develop and converge: The phone, to remotely connect us via low-speed data communications. Radio/TV, to broadcast audio/video, via cable or satellite, with one-way high-speed data communications. The computer, including two-way high-speed networking that pulls everything together. All the communication was initially over a wired cable (copper or fiber), but when the convenience of wireless came along, it became ubiquitous. As technology progresses, the differences between phones, TVs, laptops, and tablets are slowly disappearing. In a way, they are all becoming "networked computers," but each still has its own history of wireless communication standards as each experienced its own transition from wired to wireless technology. Phones and computers had a more dynamic path, but because TVs are largely static (non- mobile) devices, the cable/satellite industry mostly stayed in its own wired world. As phones became more computer-like (i.e., smart phones), and computers began supporting all kind of video- and phone-like communication capabilities, it should come as no surprise that the variety of networking technologies that have developed, past and present, are sometimes at odds. 1 2 3 Figure 1 Wireless data communications technologies