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The Assassination of Wi-Fi
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Mar 04, 2007 06:38 PM
from the sniper-has-range-on-the-target dept.
from the sniper-has-range-on-the-target dept.
justelite writes "John C. Dvorak from PC Magazine has up an article looking at the new strategy of American cell-phone-service companies. From article: 'There is mounting evidence that the cellular service companies are going to do whatever they can to kill Wi-Fi. After all, it is a huge long-term threat to them. We've seen that the route to success in America today is via public gullibility and general ignorance. And these cell-phone-service companies are no dummies.'"
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How appropriate... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How appropriate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds about fair. Summary makes the article sound interesting. In reality, it says that WiFi is going to kick the mobile phone networks' asses in the near future, they might not like this, and it suggests vaguely that they might buy some politicians and run some misleading ads. That's it; there's no revealing of any great conspiracy or anything.
Parent
Re:How appropriate... (Score:4, Funny)
Does he make a point with his article? Not really. He writes nothing that hasn't already been known by anyone who makes it a point to read anything technical. *shrug*
Parent
Re:How appropriate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Of course. They killed Metricom - with the help of incompetent management - because of the threat of Metricom's 3G speeds, which were delivered in 2001, covering millions of people, but with little subscriber uptake.
Telecoms were implicated in the reluctance of municipalities to allow Metricom right of way, the endless FUD about 3G being delivered
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He's doing something for people, informing them, but he's just not doing anything for us - the nerds. So, this post really doesn't fit on slashdot. Since it isn't for nerds and it doesn't matter.
Just my two cents.
Re:How appropriate... (Score:4, Funny)
executive summary:
The first part was funny, you know, the part about John C. Dvorak writing an article. Stopped reading after that.
Parent
Security. (Score:2, Informative)
Poor security will kill Wi-Fi.
Re:Security. (Score:5, Informative)
That aside, the article is off-base in my opinion. WiFi seems more likely to become a boost to cellular usage - expanding networks and lowering costs for providers. (IE: They combine their cellular service to work with WiFi VOIP - when a customer is in WiFi range, calls go over cheaper VOIP - when no WiFi is available it goes cellular.)
I believe there was a related article a couple of weeks ago where Google (?) was petitioning the FCC to require cellular networks to open their services to competitors - my speculation at the time was that they wanted to offer a full WiFi VOIP solution where you had cellular service when no WiFi was available.
To make my babble short, I think WiFi will expand cellular usage - not the other way around.
Parent
Re:Security. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that's right.
In physics there's measurement called "skin depth" which is the distance a wave travels before it's power level drops by 1/e or about 1/3. IIRC from my old physics 110A-B at Berkeley, it's something like wavelength/2*pi. So for higher frequencies (wavelength*freq=constant) the power drop of is greater. 802.x devices don't have much of a range because the FCC limits their frequencies in the GHz range.
A way to overcome this problem (partly) is to increase the power, but FCC uses the old 'inteference' argument to prevent this. The FCC allows 802.x devices only about 1mW/channel.
Cell phone companies on the other hand pay the FCC billions for the privilege of having exclusive rights (in the form of licenses) to low frequency 'prime' prime parts of the spectrum and with permission to use orders of magnitude more power than than 802.x devices.
Although there's the problem for bandwidth (think baud) of being inversely proportional to frequency (the lower the freqency the longer the range but the less Mbytes/second you get), there are some techniques to overcome this and which the cell phone companies themselves use.
Now, if the FCC would only set aside a small part of that 'prime' spectrum for experimental devices and allow those devices to use the same power as cell phone networks, then perhaps we could begin to experiment with a new kind of network.
When you look at what some folks are doing with mesh networking [wikipedia.org] and you combine that with higher power, lower frequency for 802.x-type devices, you begin to realize the potential of having a different kind of network, one that is neutral, one were you pay a wireless ISP for 'bandwidth' (just like you do for the wired Internet) and you access that network, with a device of your own choosing and use the bandwith you buy for voice, Internet, email, messages, video streaming, etc.. without any restrictions from the provider (unlike cell phone networks).
Of course, the cell phone companies are so influencial in Congress and pay so much money to government, it's difficult to see how this could become a reaility any time soon.
Parent
Some minor details (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a physical chemistry reason why certain frequencies were designated for the ISM bands; they happen to be frequencies that are not as useful as other (similar) frequencies for communication purposes because those frequencies represent electrical resonances in commonly occurring atmospheric gas molecules. These resonances cause excessive path loss in what would otherwise be usable free space paths. Water is one molecule that causes excessive path loss, but only at certain frequencies. The fact some of the ISM bands coincide with water molecule resonances is not an accident. Ever wonder why your microwave oven operates at 2.4 GHz in the ISM band and not some other frequency? The radio frequency energy absorbed by all those water molecules has to go somewhere....and the conversion of RF energy into molecular vibration (heat) is a good candidate for the cause of the excessive path loss at 2.4 GHz compared to path losses at 2.3 GHz or 2.5GHz.
The cellular companies all operate on licensed frequencies for which they have paid "Big Bucks" to the Federal Government and they need to make a return on their "Investment" for their shareholders. BTW, the fees the cellular companies pay to the FCC have been used by Congress to balance the Federal budget. There is a long story here that I won't go into now about spectrum use, but suffice it to say, the creation of the Cellular telephone" bands was not the first time, nor the last time, that Congress has "auctioned" off parts of the RF spectrum to the highest bidder, spectrum previously used for other purposes.
The cellular phone companies routinely disable features built into the hardware and software in many of the newer cell phones because they hope to force their customers into paying exorbitant prices for "enabling" those features, even if these are features that actually have almost no inherent cost. SMS is one example. SMS stands for "Short Message Service" and is actually the use of a very small portion of the bit rate available to cell phone users. SMS bits are like "space available" seats on airliners, they are used to fill otherwise partly empty data packets, so SMS should cost users almost nothing, but SMS users pay a higher price for SMS bits than they do for voice data bits when they talk.
I think the reason for this is consumer ignorance. Kids frequently "texting" each other have no idea how SMS works, nor do they know how much bandwidth they are NOT using when they send SMS messages to each other. SMS does not even have guaranteed delivery, unlike some other wireless messaging protocols. But don't forget that a corporation is legally obligated to make as much money as possible for its stockholders.
The infrastructure cost of an ad hoc 802.11x mesh network is "unfair competition" as far as the cellular operators are concerned because 802.11x access point costs only a few hundred dollars each. Site rent for them is also low because they usually are located on top of streetlight poles. But the cellular phone operators must pay rent for their sites on the order of $1500 each per month, on top of hardware investments in the many thousands of dollars. This "overhead" cost for the cellular operators must come from somewhere, or they will go out of business.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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This doesn't make sense. If bandwidth was inversely proportional to frequency, then the lower the frequency the more MBytes/sec you would get. But bandwidth and frequency are actually two separate issues. The frequency refers to the
Re:Security. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wifi has a very bad frequency reuse capability. The 12 (13 in EU) channels overlap so you in fact you have 3-4 useable frequencies when dealing with wifi-to-wifi interference. On the average, in a suburbian residential neighbourhood you have more than 4 neighbours within the high interference range (higher distances in the US are compensated by the higher default power). There are up to 16 more which provide extra background noise. City deployments are even worse.
So in the current form of the protocol wifi is selfregulating. The more people use it the more it sucks. As a result its adoption will level off at some point and people will stop buying it. This will be long before it reaches universal adoption.
So in fact, wifi is not a threat for operators. Their marketing depts may jump up and down from time to time. The jumping stops once they ask their own frequency planning and modelling departments (and every cellco has these, deploying cellular is quite math heavy). It stops because every time they get an answer "Due to bad frequency reuse it is bound to become useless long before ubiquity".
The only way to change it is to completely redesign the MAC for frequency reuse while on the same channel. Either "speak only spoken-to" strategy or some CDMA-like coding strategy where interference on the same channel is considerably less relevant. Unfortunately the industry groups doing the IEEE work are not doing any of that. They are hell bent on pushing the bandwith and do not want to deal with what will become the ultimate protocol killer in the long run.
Parent
Next week: (Score:4, Insightful)
But... it's Dvorak (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But... it's Dvorak (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:But... it's Dvorak (Score:4, Insightful)
1. It's poorly written
2. PC Magazine does not hold any status for me, hence the kilo of salt is still burning in my belly.
Now, let's take a look at the general populace, and wifi as a whole. Cellular cards have to be bought and paid for over and above the laptop. Pretty much any laptop out today has an 802.11a/b/g chipset built into it and all versions of microsoft windows, be it XP or Vista will ask you if you want to "connect" to a public wireless network. so much so that it's considered a security risk by most companies.
Enter 3.5G and 4G. I'm no pundit but i've been in this industry long enough to see a failing standard a mile out, yes cell networks are liscenced, expensive and slow when compared with 802.11. Bell in Canada is rolling out 802.11 AP's on thier public phones. The cost of licensing the bands for 3.5G and 4G from the FCC and the CRTC in put the implementation of these networks into the billions. Where as a good metropolitan wifi implemenation will cost you back a few million.
It's called pervasive availability, and John needs to understand that people may be "STUPD" on a whole but he really should take his head out of his behind. if you have 3000+ laptops at any given moment and somones standing in a public area using it and they do not have a cellular card because they are "STUPID" they will proabaly notice the whole "Wifi" notice in XP when they sit in a coffee shop and start writeing, or when they are in a park outside.
EV-DO, EDGE and all those other toys require pre-requisite knoledge, ie: the client has to go out and become aware of these technologies before they can use them, they only compete where you have somone that flys a LOT.
My opinion shouldn't count as I am known to play with all the wireless networks I can find, and given the opportunity I'll use the 802.11. I guess i'm not stupid.
Parent
People get what they deserve (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People get what they deserve (Score:5, Insightful)
For some classes of products, such as sewers and drinkable water, it may make sense to put your local conniving pocket-lining councilman in charge. But I'm far from convinced that wifi falls under that category.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I am thoroughly convinced by the existing WiFi infrastructure. Right now if I want complete coverage over the city I either have to spring for some stupid WiMax garbage with awful bandwidth and a highly centralized provider, or I have to pay umpteen million different little fees to get access in this place or that palce. Airports are the absolute worst for this BTW.
This is not a workable situation that will lead anywhere that's good for the consumer in the long run.
I've come to the conclusion that the n
Law and Order (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Citizens in many municipalities have much more competition for the goods and services you cite (food, clothing, shelter) than they do broadband Internet access. Moreover, in many municipalities, the rules that govern competition in broadband are natural (e.g., only so much fiber in available rights-of-way) or are set by larger political entities (e.g., state telecommunications regulatory commissions).
So, when you say:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Roads, Police, Electricity, Hydro, Banking protections, credit card protections. Need I go on... Try again dude.
Are these libertarians starting to bother anyone else?
Government can 'compete' (Score:3, Insightful)
Sewers must use common pipes for many reasons, water as well. This requires a "neutral" area of land for interconnections. Nearly all roads are a public resource (well, the land is.) Typically, the pipes run on the land the roads also do. Depending on the wisdom & corruption of your local government determines how well it is managed.
Using the SAME LOGIC w
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People get what they deserve (Score:5, Interesting)
Several years back, the local government tried to set up a municipal ISP to provide cheap broadband for no profit. The final decision of whether or not to go for it was left to a referendum. In the months leading up to it, the local cable company (who would lose a lot of money if this went through) ran a massive campaign to turn public opinion against the municipal broadband project. At the same time, the law did not allow the city to run a similar campaign in favor of the plan. So the only information being disseminated to most voters was completely anti (FUD, mostly), and few of them got much of a chance to hear the other side of the story, let alone a reasoned and balanced overview of the pros and cons of municipal broadband.
Naturally, it got voted down. And it wasn't because the electorate was dumb. Due to the nature of the law and the fact that money is speech and the cable company had all the money, most voters simply were not informed on the issue - and it's a blue collar town, so most the people simply didn't have enough knowledge of technology to really be able to inform themselves. Maybe the plan still would have broken down had the whole situation not been a complete failure of democracy, but saying it's as simple as the electorate being able to ask for it if they're smart enough is a gross oversimplifcation of reality.
Parent
Wow: harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
Most western Europeans didn't ask for sewers and drinkable water; they had them foisted upon them at tax payer expense in the mid 19th century. That is certainly true of the first modern large scale sewer system which was built in London. "The transcript traces more than 250 years of human misery, due largely to ignorance of the hazards of poor sanitation. Citizens, physicians, politicians, inventors and police provided vivid horror stories of 'miasmas, plagues and sudden death" in the homes of London.'" http://swopnet.com/engr/londonsewers/londontext1.
Ignorance is deadly but curable. Ignorance about the importance of sewers and drinkable water may seem inconceivable to many of us, but such ignorance in rampant around the world.
When I watch documentaries about poor ghettos in latin America, inevitably there are toddlers playing in open cesspools and teenagers standing around unemployed, uneducated, and idle. I see that and wonder why the teenagers aren't put to work digging sewers or at least keeping toddlers out of them. For the price of the cigarettes the teenagers smoke, children could be fed and sewers built and clean water supplies maintained. I always think to myself that people who prioritize cigarettes over sewers get what they deserve just like people generally get the government they deserve.
But then I am more charitable and assume that people live in horrid conditions because of ignorance. Ignorance causes poverty and death.
There was a documentary (I think on 20/20) about hunger in the U.S.A. A father was being interviewed and he explained that toward the end of the month, there is no bread left and the children have to go hungry for days. During the interview, the father was standing in front of his satellite dish and smoking. For the price of one pack of cigarettes, the children could have eaten basic stables like bread, potatoes, and canned vegetables for several days. For the price of the satellite dish and its likely monthly subscription, the children could have been clothed and fed.
I couldn't help thinking that the father's priorities were a little skewed and sad.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There is nothing about election in the definition of municipal governments, and neither muicipal nor alect even have definitions.
Drinkable water isn't generally provided by municipal governments, it's treated and provided by private water companies. I'm not sure who provides sewage services, but it's something
hi (Score:2, Funny)
If they can get hteir prices down... (Score:4, Interesting)
They might actually kill WiFi provided they can get their prices down to $49 worth of hardware and the cost of a land line, supply at least 2 computers and more bandwidth, enough for video, or at least as much as WiFi.
So when I can use 3 computers for $29/mo I am game... but forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting. Oh, and skip the roaming and by the minute charges. And can I share videos with the neighbors for free...without being monitored?
This is an ancient business model... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is an ancient business model... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. Government has too much power available for business to come in and take advantage of.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
These trolley lines had managed to limp through WWII but were in deep trouble long before. The middle class abandoned the trolley as quickly as the mass produced Ford and Chevy made it convenient and affordable.
toronto and rogers (Score:3, Interesting)
Alrighty... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do we mark the summary as a troll?
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but come on.
Cellular Carriers = Mainframes of Wireless (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cellular Carriers = Mainframes of Wireless (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo. The real problem with cell-phone data service is the ridiculous pricing regime. 10 cents for a 160 character text message? Get real. Lets suppose for a moment that audio consumes 10kbps and its latency sensitive. One minute retails for 30 cents... 10k*60/8b... you get the picture. Data rates are out of this world, disconnected from reality. That's the real story.
Parent
WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are no:
1) Facts
2) Specific instances of any wireless company activity
3) Conspiracy theories about how they might be going about this...
While it may be true that widespread wi-fi may threaten a part of the cell phone provider business model, the article makes no mention of any company doing anything about it (save the introduction of a couple data access cards).
The article also does not address the common-sense fact that Wi-Fi (as it currently exists) can't replace the type of coverage that the cell phone company can give you.
It seems that Dvorak's editors have even lower standards than those of Slashdot!!
How YOU can save wifi! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fon.com/en/ [fon.com]
get a damn wifi router, stick it on your cable/dsl (they give them away sometimes, too, but a few $ is worth it), now, you can get wifi from everyone else who is sharing their 'net.
I can walk a few blocks in most cities and get online. Help us (and yourself) out, m'kay?
I remember well... (Score:4, Insightful)
How's It Going To Be Killed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Silly John C. Dvorak (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, of course
Do other companies, with political pull, have an interest in more global wifi access?
Yes, of course...
Will more global wifi access be free?
Not likely, but it probably will be available. Cell phone networks surely can profit from this and they already do. Isn't it lucrative to offer a cellular connection to the internet and then provide wifi from that location (shouldn't this be obvious to John)? I do believe that AT&T offered to provide me with overpriced wi-fi access the last time I walked into Barnes and Noble. I'm failing to find anything relevant in the entire article.
Other direction is also true. (Score:3, Insightful)
4 years ago, my professor for personal mobile communications class said wi-fi and cellular complements each other. It was his first year at school after 5-6 years of experience in one of the biggest cellular (hardware) companies. Later, he corrected himself by saying both sides are trying to kill each-other: cellular is trying to provide higher data rates (and hence WCDMA etc.) and wi-fi is trying to incorporate mobility and hand-off which are essential for voice communications (and hence WiMAX, IEEE 802.20 etc.). I believe at some point both will merge if the IP rights issues could be solved.
Competition is always good for both end user and for engineers (and engineers to be like myself).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The range is ridiculous or requires big antennas,...
Range? Do you really think there's no cell tower at less than 100m from you? In San Francisco? Let me doubt it. Never mind these pesky new protocols (WiMax, for example, even if it's a braindead specification) who allow you to connect from kilometres away. On the antenna subject, a bigger antenna doesn't equal better reception.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
On roaming experience, YMMV, of course. But I know it can work, since I'm taking advantage of it daily. You talk about handovers at the administrative limits, but forget that those handovers have been sorted time and time again (see standard cellular handovers between different commercial providers). Why shouldn't they now? And consider, also, that such handovers are less important when you get a
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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Yes, its called VPN and to be honest if you're using public/semi-public wi-fi hotspots without it then you deserve whatever happens to you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can ask the same of whatever data network the cell phone companies provide. What's their standard on encryption, authentication and other security matters?
Question for you: If you're that concerned about security, why don't use you a VPN or a SSH tunnel?