I know what "exponentially" means, I know what "quadratically" means (and how it's not exponentially), and I know the inverse square law. Hence my question why the article claims "signal strength" decreases exponentially, when the raw power received by an antenna definitely decreases quadratically, not exponentially. That's just physics. But there might be some convoluted thing about stepping down symbol rate which affects throughput (which I guess could be colloquially called "signal strength" if I squint really hard) that I don't understand here.