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by Dylan16807 561 days ago
> there is always a transmitter pointed at you

A transmitter, sure. If you go from having 40 transmitters pointing at you, to now having 6 transmitters pointing at you, that makes a big difference. Even if they're running at twice the EIRP now, that's a big improvement.

> So any argument based on this idea that there are no transmitters pointed at you would fail badly in practice.

My argument doesn't depend on that.

> The amount of interference depends on many factors. [...] So to estimate the change in interference when all replace their omnidirectional antennas with directive antennas, increasing the radiant intensity, is far more complex than your simple arithmetic.

Yes I simplified. But does that completely upend the result? If so, show me the math that makes it happen.

> groups within which only one transmits (but almost all the time there is an active transmitter)

> cross the threshold at which communication becomes impossible for yourself

And guess what? If everyone doubles their EIRP but transmits in a much narrower beam, the area in which that happens becomes smaller. The number of transmitter pairs that need to time-share decreases.

> Planning wireless networks cannot be done based on hopes that you will be the luckiest in the universe and Murphy's law will not apply to you.

I think your argument depends on me being lucky in the omnidirectional case but unlucky in the directed transmit case. That's not a reasonable way to assess alternatives.

For every percent chance that higher-EIRP directional transmit causes me problems, there's a bigger chance that higher-total-power omnidirectional transmit causes me problems.