The Assassination of Wi-Fi 258
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.'"
How appropriate... (Score:4, Insightful)
Next week: (Score:4, Insightful)
But... it's Dvorak (Score:3, Insightful)
WiFi is not a threat to cellular networks (Score:0, Insightful)
People get what they deserve (Score:3, Insightful)
This is an ancient business model... (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.
Seems a bit Over hyped (Score:2, Insightful)
In all honesty, I think the author is having a slow news day and doesn't have anything else to whine (sorry, write) about. But then, I've not been a fan of his work for quite a while, and whining grates on my nerves.
Re:But... it's Dvorak (Score:5, 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.
Alrighty... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do we mark the summary as a troll?
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but come on.
Re:WiFi is not a threat to cellular networks (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.
Transmitters that, as we all know, cover every WiFi signal in... ten meters around, since they are usually inside houses?
It's a completely different product.
Which explains why 3G works on top of IPv6. Yeah, it must be a completely different product: it provides the same service, uses the same technology. The only difference is the frequency range: 3G works on the 5GHz band (which requires almost line of sight to work, so there goes your complaint about range).
Next time, please document yourself beforehand. It doesn't matter your being moderated Insightful when your post if actually off base.
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.
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.
Re:Security. (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you price it? If I have a WiFi capable device loaded with VOIP software that I connect either via my own, or an open access point to someone else using a similar setup, there is no reasonable way for carriers to extort money from me. The do not control the network and they do not control my use of it. That is what scares the shit out of them. There is no way out for them except for forcing manufacturers to not add WiFi support to their devices. Which is the exact strategy the carriers by large are using. So far it has worked because manufacturers are wholly dependent on carriers to sell their phones.
One thing's for sure: (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where's the beef? (Score:2, Insightful)
How's It Going To Be Killed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Security. (Score:1, Insightful)
With conventional technology that will only get you a screamfest where the devices can't understand one another among the devices which are screaming at some other device (i.e. interference). Sharing a frequency over a big area, without central control, is beyond the reach of currently available consumer technology.
Re:Who do I trust the most? (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?
Re:People get what they deserve (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 natural monopoly (basically all the lines in the ground) should be owned by the municipality and it should rent it to whatever providers want to route people's traffic. And it should be rented on a house-by-house basis. Every house should get to decide who routes their traffic.
I think something similar is appropriate for municipal WiFi. I want to pay only one fee for the stupid service, and I want it to work everywhere. The current situation will never devolve into that. Instead it will become increasingly balkanized as every provider tries harder and harder to capture ever tiny last drop of revenue that can be extracted.
Re:How's It Going To Be Killed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How appropriate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People get what they deserve (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:
please understand that "the market" works best for a municipality's citizens when it is not a natural or artificial monopoly.
In markets where there is inadequate competition, it's well within reason for a municipality to do something to provide better options for its citizens. That could be municipal broadband. That could be attaching riders to franchise agreement renewals with cable or phone providers to open up the market more (for municipalities that get to negotiate their own franchise agreements). That could be endorsing the actions of a non-profit that brings in a competitive broadband solution. Or who knows what else.
Conversely, if there's adequate competition, a municipality shouldn't need to bother, beyond perhaps offering WiFi in public buildings, parks, etc.
Re:How appropriate... (Score:2, Insightful)
Amen to that. From the summary:
Who epitomizes that better than Dvorak?
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.
Re:How appropriate... (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.
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:People get what they deserve (Score:3, Insightful)
Just as long as you recognize there are lots of people for whom 'the market' has done jack, left out in the cold, or even worse, downright exploited, in some of the most awful and unethical ways imaginable. Now, it's important to separate provisioning of necessities, which GGP was talking about, and luxuries which, for most people, net access, especially WiFi, still is one.
Proof is beside the point. What you need is evidence in favor of or contradicting a falsifiable hypothesis. The hypothesis here is that municipalities are better suited to providing broadband internet access to citizens than utilities. The utilities necessarily enable wireless access, at this point, over more-or-less monopolized right-of-ways. This does not bode well for the market reaching optimal solutions.
Furthermore, national market penetration for broadband net access altogether, let alone WiFi, is abysmally low in the US. Given that billions of dollars in subsidies have been given to telecom companies with assurances that broadband penetration would reach levels substantially higher than we have seen as a result, it does not seem that a privatized system using 'public' utilities in this particular market segment is a beneficial one.
However, one solution for wider Wi-Fi broadband deployment may involve municipalities negotiating with backbone providers for bandwidth rates, to be distributed over the Wi-Fi grid in their cities which could be installed and maintained, again by private companies. The issue isn't necessarily that there needs to be a governmental solution, but that huge private companies are moving to protect their profits by stifling innovation. By further diversifying the internet architecture, and taking it off of the exclusive right-of-ways the federal government gave billions of dollars to have improved by private companies who screwed the pooch, those companies are actually risking real retribution.
I'm neither saying the government nor the market are the best solution, and I think it's silly to look at the two as a dichotomy.
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.
Re:Security. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 carrier frequency. In case of 802.11, it is 2.4GHz or 5.8Ghz. Cell phones here in Canada use 800 and 1900 MHz (I think). But these numbers have nothing to do with bandwidth. The bandwidth is determined by how wide the channel is that is centred around that frequency. Take FM Radio for example. Stations are set 200 KHz apart, so you have say 98.3MHz, 98.5Mhz, etc... That means that each station has 200 KHz of bandwidth. Bandwidth does not vary with carrier frequency.
If I had the 800MHz frequency and 20MHz of bandwidth, that would mean that I would actually be using the frequencies from 790MHz to 810MHz.
Re:Some minor details (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People get what they deserve (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 we regulate radio waves. Its a public resource and its quite limited. The FCC is doing a poor job managing OUR air waves. Cell phone companies are wasting good bandwidth with this so called "wonderful" competition. It would be better to force them to share a wide band, which would necessitate some sort of industry standard. Its not necessary to mandate specifics, but if competent at it, I see no reason why not to do so as well.
Its under this direction of management that it begins to make sense to have local governments setup more; depending on how much accessibility you want.
Given how bad cell phones and ISPs are today, I can't see how a somewhat corrupt government can't beat them.