Venezuelans set new WiFi distance record: 237 miles

It's been a while since we've seen people muck around with long-distance WiFi -- not only are DIY solutions like cantennas possibly illegal, sexier technologies like WiMAX have emerged to better serve those long-distance IP needs. WiFi's flame burns on in Latin America, however, where researcher Ermanno Pietrosemoli has managed to shoot an 802.11 signal 382 kilometers (237 miles) between two mountains in the Venezuelan Andes. Pietrosemoli, who is president of Latin American networking association Escuela Latinoamerica de Redes, used some of Intel's long-range WiFi tech and $60 worth of Linksys hardware to achieve throughput of 3 Mbps in each direction and beat the former record of 310 kilometers (192 miles). Pietrosemoli hopes to use the tech to serve developing nations, but seeing as we barely get 3 Mbps in our WiFi-choked apartment building with the laptop sitting next to the router, we're hoping he lets us in on the secret as well.