Canadian Telcos Agree on WiFi Hotspot Standard 84
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."
What an apt name! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What an apt name! (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't matter how intense the radiation is if the energy carried by the photons does not cross the threshold of actually doing something.
Re:What an apt name! (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's my point and that's what people don't often understand when it comes to matters of radiation.
Intensity does not matter because
Damage(E) = Intensity * Damage per photon(E)
If the energy (E) is too low to disrupt the DNA, "Damage per photon" goes to zero.
A (high) school physics example of this is the photoelectric effect in which the incoming photons extract electrons from metals. If the energy of a photon is less than the energy between a free electron state (=ejected electron) and a binding valence state (=electron in an atom), electrons do not get ejected no matter how intense your radiation is. You can replace the free-electron - valence electorn bandgap with the energy required to disrupt the DNA and the same reasoning applies.
The energy does not "accumulate" in the system either. The photon will only yield its payload of energy to the matter IF the payload is equivalent to the energy gap. Otherwise the interaction is negligible.
It's well documented that natural temperature variations in the brain are larger than anything induced by a modern cellphone.
The only way that I can imagine the cell phone radiation causing damage is an extremely unlikely chance of a interference peak of several fields inside the skull cavity. But even that would be short-lived because of the extreme sensitivity of the interference pattern on the dimensions and spatial location of the skull and the transmitters.
DNA, schmee-en-ay. (Score:2)
Not saying cell phone radiation is harmful, but I am saying I don't know yet and I'm glad research is still being done (if it is).
Re:What an apt name! (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, as you point out, your physics properly applies only to metals. There are lots of lower-energy bonds one can excite in long organic molecules.
As to total energy deposition, evidence suggests that bulk heating is not required in long-term exposure. I have read that highway cops who used to sit with traffic radars next to their head
oh, it's the photons! (Score:2)
Thanks for clearing that up :) Now all I have to do is prevent the photons from disrupting my molecular dna bonds and I'm safe from cellphones? This is wonderful news!
Sorry, just couldn't help myself...
Re:oh, it's the photons! (Score:1)
Tin foil beanie [zapatopi.net]
Re:What an apt name! (Score:1)
Re:What an apt name! (Score:1)
You could walk through a megawatt X-ray laser and have no side effects if the beam is generated by a phased array.
You can walk through microwaves and not be harmed, e.g. 900mhz cordless phones and 802.11b hubs.
This is why the
Hmm... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
(Elsa YT 1972-1982
Canada is second in the World I'll have you know (Score:2, Informative)
Betcha didn't know that, eh?
Standards (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Standards (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Standards (Score:1)
Re:Emigrating to Canda (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Emigrating to Canda (Score:1)
http://canadainternational.gc.ca/view-en.asp?Gr
Re:Emigrating to Canda (Score:4, Funny)
1. Apply for refugee status.
2. Get rejected.
3. Marry a Canadian.
4. Get a Visa, head on over, and apply for landed immigrant status.
5. Hire an Immigration Lawyer. Start filling out forms.
6. Six months later you will still not have a work permit. This will begin to worry you because you will be almost done filling out forms and the staff at the local government offices now know to run and hide as soon as you enter sight.
7. Bribe, threaten, or blackmail your immigration lawyer into submitting the lynchpin form he was supposed to submit the day you started paying him. He will not want to do this because it will mean allowing you to pass out of his power. Read some Anne Rice novels to more fully understand his or her motivations.
8. Congratulations! Work permit! Your can now use your PHD in physics to find employment in our nation's fine eating establishments, convenience stores, and, if you take night-school, perhaps a mechanic shop. Of course, you will be competing with Canadian PHD holders for many of these positions, so don't expect an easy go at it. (This is one of the downsides to being a member of the most over-educated population on the planet) If you feel discouraged, visit the local pizza hut and laugh at the waitresses holding PHD's in 18th century Russian Poetry who are even more hooped than you!
9. Employment. Now that you're making money it's time to pay 60% of what you earn in taxes. Being from a Scandinavian country you should be used to this.
10. After a few years you will be able to apply for Canadian citizenship. After this point you will be fully qualified to criticize americans and be completely ignored instead of being bombed back into the stone age. By this point in time you should also feel the beginning of a massive inferiority complex setting in and should also be experiencing uncontrollable urges to hold doors open for people while constantly apologizing for everything.
Re:Emigrating to Canda (Score:2)
Emigrating to canada is nothing like that.
You need 2 PHDs to work in a pizarrea
More seriously though , the provincial goverment of ontario and the federal goverment (probably some other provinces as well) are currently working to have forieng credientials more easily recognized by the professional organizations with witch one must be registered with . Right now they are focusing on engineering , nursing and doctor stuff ; but they plan to include other professions as well .
Re:Emigrating to Canda (Score:1)
Re:Emigrating to Canda (Score:2)
If you are coming here to set up a business its not that hard . If you are comming here to work for some one or the goverment make sure you have a job before you come over. If you show the immigration people the job offer they are a lot more likely to let you in and you are a lot more likely to have a nice job when you get here (a lot of people who dont plan end up spending a year or 2 looking for work , it is very hard to get certain credentials recognized , it all depends)
Somewhat Slasdotted... Ob. Repost (Score:1, Informative)
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
Re:Somewhat Slasdotted... Ob. Repost (Score:2)
The announcement is a step toward the development of standards and cross-carrier roaming capabilities for Canadian Wi-Fi users and wankers like michael
Good to see the moderators are reading these posts first!
Standards Nice, Now they'll Lose Money on Location (Score:5, Interesting)
More competition for locations? all the better. (Score:1)
Rogers & Wi-Fi (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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...
Re:Telus: Future outpost of Hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe your cellphone has been cloned. That would explain the huge bills and these calls. Have you ever asked for a listing of the calls made with your phone?
Re:Telus: Future outpost of Hell? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Derivative (or inspired, however you want to put it) off of the longest-running WWII-based TV series, Combat! [imdb.com] from 1962.
Re:Telus: Future outpost of Hell? (Score:1)
It was cool, whereas i am not.
Thank the Lord SciFi occationally reruns it.
To Divide or To Unite - Does Money Decide ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
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 ..
Re:To Divide or To Unite - Does Money Decide ?? (Score:1)
Text messaging already interoperates (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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.
Is this number really right??? (Score:2)
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).
Probably (Score:1)
BTW: I don't have any actual statistics, but then again 73% of all statistics are made up anyway.
Actually it sounds about right. (Score:2)
Nice change... no GSM vs CDMA choice. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Nice change... no GSM vs CDMA choice. (Score:2)