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Wireless Networking Hardware

Canadian Telcos Agree on WiFi Hotspot Standard 84

Posted by michael from the yay-canada dept.
Jucius Maximus writes "As reported by Globetechnology, Canada's cellphone providers have agreed to create a common standard for their subscribers to connect to the Internet via public "hot-spots." The agreement became necessary because Canada's cellphone providers offer four different and incompatible connection technologies. The carriers will continue to vigorously compete with each other, both for customers and Wi-Fi hotspot locations, the CWTA said in a statement."
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Canadian Telcos Agree on WiFi Hotspot Standard More

Canadian Telcos Agree on WiFi Hotspot Standard

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  • What an apt name! (Score:5, Funny)

    by bo0ork ( 698470 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @05:26AM (#6772038)
    "Hot spot" -- a place where the radiation level is high. Oh I know, nothing has been proved, but then, smoking was harmless for decades, too.
  • Canada - Savage Wasteland of the north, or model for the future?

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zhiwenchong ( 155773 )
      The latter, I'm inclined to think.

      Savage wasteland, eh? Hmm.... but the weather in Minneapolis, Detroit, upstate New York, and the northern states aren't too different from other cities in Canada. The weather in Seattle isn't too different from Vancouver either.

      So how is Canada a savage wasteland? If you're talking about Yukon, NWT and Nunavut, well... Americans have Alaska.
      • Easy now... some of us grew up in those "wastelands" and consider themselves better for it...

        (Elsa YT 1972-1982 :)

  • Standards (Score:1, Redundant)

    by qorkfiend ( 550713 )
    While Standards do not really promote competition, standards make it easy for laypeople to access the 'Net. As a Verizon subscriber, and as a "alaunt" member, I would like nothing more than to see the Alaunt run beside us in battle. All Glory to Those who Came First.

    • Re:Standards (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Standards do not really promote competition

      What do you mean they don't promote competition? Of course they promote competition. When you have a standard, anyone who wants to can implement that standard. When you have nonstandard, proprietary connection technologies, each company has a monopoly over its own version. That doesn't sound very competitive to me; it means that any new players in the field will have to make their own incompatible technology, enlarging the barrier to entry. So make no mistake a

  • Canadian cellphone carriers rally around Wi-Fi
    By JACK KAPICA
    Globe and Mail Update
    Canada's cellphone providers have agreed to create a common standard for their subscribers to connect to the Internet via public "hot-spots."

    The 12-million people who own cellphones, personal digital assistants or any wireless device and subscribe to Bell Mobility (with Aliant Mobility), Microcell Solutions (Fido), Rogers AT&T Wireless or Telus Mobility will be able to use all Wi-Fi hot-spots operated by any one of th

  • Standards Nice, Now they'll Lose Money on Location (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @05:47AM (#6772093) Homepage Journal
    These guys may have interoperability going for them but they'll definately have a pitched battle for all the good locations. I can see the regular locations making some good profits off how greedy these Welcos as they toss more and more money at companies for lucrative locations. My advice to any potentials is to not sign extremely lenghty contracts so you can have a bidding war every few years.
    • Because these companies are scrambling to get in as many good locations as possible, there will inevitably be an increase in the number of "hot spots" across the nation. Access points will appear in locations they never thought of before. This will make it easier to find a good wireless internet connection and improve the value and versatility of owning a wireless device.

  • Rogers & Wi-Fi (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zro Point Two ( 699505 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @05:49AM (#6772099)
    I just hope that Rogers isn't the one who develops the network layout. I get to deal on a daily bases with what they have done with the cable internet, and man does it suck.

    I wonder if they'll roll Wi-Fi into a service offered to their highspeed internet customers? Small extra fee, but you'll be able to access the internet without being at home. This would be great for the business guy who's doing meetings all over town constantly.

  • Telus: Future outpost of Hell? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cordath ( 581672 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @05:54AM (#6772118)
    Does anybody remember a T.V. show called "Space: Above and Beyond"? It was pretty derivative and was cancelled after one season, but it did have one thing going for it... All the evil government conspiracies back home were tied to an evil megacorp named Telus... Telus just happens to be the dominant Telco in my province, and yes, they are EVIL.

    You should see my bill. Enron should have taken lessons from Telus's billing department when it comes to creative accounting. I pay twice what I agreed to pay in the five-year cellphone contract I unwittingly signed in suspicious smelling red ink. I have no clue why, and they aren't about to tell me.

    My cellphone inexplicably dies in my basement while other cellphones on other providers get crystal clear reception. I regularily receive phonecalls at 3AM from people who say things like "What the @#$%!! Stop calling this number you @#$#tard!" or "Hello? Hello? STOP CALLING ME YOU PERVERT!" Of course, the number displayed from these calls is my own, which makes it somewhat difficult to know who I should stop being woken up by calls from at 3am. Is there an evil prankster at work, or are Telus' phone-lines possessed by a minion of the Dark one who relishes the creation minor annoyances? Perhaps it's the same minion who came up with Britney Spears and reality TV...

  • Common standards introduced by the national Canadian cellphone carriers would help to eliminate the development of redundant authentication and billing methods and will lead to consistent, simplified access, the group said.

    It seems interesting to me that to really tap into the market, different companies are uniting in Wi-Fi. But, on the other hand in the "Instant Messaging" market, it seems that the companies have thrived by dividing the market amongst themselves ... why does "uniting" work in the Wi-Fi market, while "dividing" work in the IM market ...

    Looking at the quote from the article (on top of this comment) it seems that the driving force to common standards in Wi-Fi is to eliminate the development of redundant authentication and billing methods viz. that it is about money.

    It makes me wonder if the IM packages became "pay only" would it lead to a set of open and common standards in the Instant Messaging market to eliminate the development of redundant authentication and billing methods. I don't think that many people would relish having to pay for five different IM's .... Personally, I think free is better than not free - but I couldn't help noticing this relationship of money and dividing/uniting ..

    • o Because if they were not interoperable.. you would be tied down to a single ISP. o If IM were as interoperable as say email... they would be much cheaper. It is very much a doable thing.(see jabber ) but the IM companies don't see any profit in being interoperable with everyone even if they went paid... they'd rather be selectively interoperable amongst each other for a price that way the market would still be split 4-5 ways instead of a million way split if we went for something like jabber.
    • Nearly two years ago the Canadian cell companies got together and created a text message centre to allow interoperation of their text messaging services. Now, I can message a Telus, Fido or Rogers customer from anyone of the competing services.

      The Wi-Fi move is just another logical step. We have three competing national companies in a market that really only seems able to support two profitably. This is a reality of a country with a small population covering a large geographic area.

  • Nothing new (Score:3, Informative)

    by JohanV ( 536228 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @08:46AM (#6772554) Homepage
    European NRENs are already doing this on an international scale. With credentials from participating local university students and employees can already log on to the WiFi hotspots of other participating universities and research institutions in both their own and other countries.
    The authentication mechanism is based on IEEE 802.1x [surfnet.nl] and uses a RADIUS backend to enable cross domain authentication [surfnet.nl]. Currently this is in operation [surfnet.nl] (machine translation [worldlingo.com]) between the Netherlands, Portugal and England, and Croatia is next.

    SURFnet is also working [planet.nl] (machine translation [worldlingo.com]) with local hotspot operators in the Netherlands to make sure Dutch students can roam their networks as well. Initially this will offered as a free service fro students.
  • From the article:

    ... 12-million people who own cellphone ...

    This is Canada, right? A country with just over 30 million people *IN TOTAL*... 12 *MILLION* cell phones???

    I would have expected the number to be no more than 5 or 6 million, personally. There are, after all only 30 million people in total, and this includes infants and elderly people that are somewhat cautious about new technology (my gramma was one of them before she passed away last year at 99).

    • This is Canada. Lotsa cellphones not quite as many guns as the USA. Judge for yourself. ;-)

      BTW: I don't have any actual statistics, but then again 73% of all statistics are made up anyway.
    • There are indeed about 30 million people in about 13 million households in Canada...and being I was born and raised here I can tell you that the majority of households have a cellphone here (both in the city and in the surrounding rural communities)--and it is very common to see a family where there are two or more (parents give their teenagers cellphones for emergency use and/or to keep tabs on them). I've seen kids as young as 10-12 on cellphones and some of my own relatives in their 80s have them as wel

  • Nice change... no GSM vs CDMA choice. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WoTG ( 610710 ) on Saturday August 23, 2003 @04:19PM (#6774526) Homepage Journal
    After years of deciding between GSM and CDMA (and I think we had a TDMA provider...) I'm glad that won't be a problem this time around. I'm definitely glad that they're not choosing some proprietary protocol... so at least getting a wireless card will remain as easy as hopping into your local computer store.

    Now the first question I have, is how much is this going to cost? Data rates on the cell-networks were ridiculously high for non-necessary useage... hopefully it won't be the same with WiFi.

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