An anonymous reader writes "Remember all those projects to cover cities with Wi-Fi? The BBC wants to know what happened to them. When it comes to underground wireless data access, there are obvious issues regarding implementing a wireless infrastructure in underground stations and tunnels, but above ground the BBC suggests that it may be other advancements, such as Wimax, that have made Wi-Fi a less attractive solution. PCMag, on the other hand, suggests that public Wi-Fi isn't dead at all and will make a comeback due to the increasing popularity of Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones. So, will city-wide Wi-Fi make a real comeback, or have other technologies, such as Wimax or 4G, killed the concept for good?"
Wifi doesn't cost much for the end-user because most people already have wifi. Wifi infrastructure costs more money for the providers. At the end of the day someone is paying for it. I say we should invest in the most economic technology, but there will be a lot of people with wifi cards who don't agree.
Goddamn. I kept waiting for that to happen when I was living there, right smack in the middle of the coverage area... and it looks like they got it up and running just after I left.
Is it in wide use already? Is it holding up? How does its infrastructure and maintenance cost compare to a wider range wireless? To me, it seemed that the biggest drawback to wide area WiFi is that each base station has a very limited range, cellular and WiMax has a range of miles between towers, for WiFi, you might be lucky to cover several houses with one base station. I tried working though all of what it takes, and it just seemed like too much work and too much money spent for too little in return.
It's got (somewhat spotty) city-wide coverage, and is in fairly wide use. It's half to two-thirds the cost of comparable speeds of cable or DSL (several speeds available, from 1M/1M to 6M/1M). APs on roughly a 2-block grid, it works well if you're close to one and don't have conductive things in the way (we have a lot of stucco buildings, and stucco is done on a wire mesh base that's pretty good radio shielding). There are (recommended, extra cost) wireless uni
I used it last weekend -- Obama was in town and the area near the stadium was covered well enough to use before going in. Sadly it didn't make it into the stadium, but it was useful outside.
I pulled into a parking lot in Milpitas to make a phone call and use my computer. I didn't need to be online for the call, just look at stuff, but I was pleased to see that there was a wireless signal, they've got tons of free access points all over Milpitas, and the signal was pretty good., It wasn't foolproof - they have a login-timeout browser window thingy, and connecting to my company VPN meant killed its connection so it cut me off after about 5 minutes, but that was enough to download any new email,
The problem I've had with it is that each access point I've encountered usually requires a login and/or a fee to use. For example, Wifi in Starbucks requires a monthly fee from AT&T (or T-Mobile, can't remember). Across the street the library is free. The McDonalds next door charges $2.95 an hour, along with the Wendy's across the corner. The lobby in the hospital is free but requires a login that only the clerk at the front desk can provide. There is Wifi in the mall that is free.
I think that most people would prefer an all-or-nothing approach. Give me one Wifi experience or forget it. Having to keep track of a new login method every 200-500 feet is a hassle.
I think that most people would prefer an all-or-nothing approach. Give me one Wifi experience or forget it. Having to keep track of a new login method every 200-500 feet is a hassle.
So tell your wireless system to ignore access points that require any sort of login. Then you can pretend they don't exist, and that there's simply less hassle-free WiFi coverage. If you were near the library or mall, you'd see that there's Wifi. Elsewhere, no.
You can ignore encrypted access points, but there's no way to detect APs that use an HTML login page until after you're already connected.
Plus, the OP's point (I think) was that instead of paying $3 here and $2 there, why not have a $40/mo fee that buys you access anywhere (home, work, school, play) you go.
The problem I've had with it is that each access point I've encountered usually requires a login and/or a fee to use. For example, Wifi in Starbucks requires a monthly fee from AT&T (or T-Mobile, can't remember). Across the street the library is free. The McDonalds next door charges $2.95 an hour, along with the Wendy's across the corner. The lobby in the hospital is free but requires a login that only the clerk at the front desk can provide. There is Wifi in the mall that is free.
I think that most people would prefer an all-or-nothing approach. Give me one Wifi experience or forget it. Having to keep track of a new login method every 200-500 feet is a hassle.
None of those examples are city-wide Wifi. City-wide Wifi would be one provider providing wifi everywhere with one login
TFA is referring not to de-facto ubiquitous coverage by multiple independent access points, but by a single, centrally run mesh of access points owned and operated (at least partially) by the municipal government.
At least in the USA, this has largely been quashed by the telcos in the courts, claiming that such networks are unfair competition to their price gouging mobile data plans.
I think they're referring to Muni-WiFi, not hotspots.
Muni-WiFi angered the telecom gods, and they rained storms of money up on the legislatures to prevent the airwaves from this abomination.
The hotel/motel gods also were highly upset that their revenues would be stanched, and so also did voice much objection up on the Muni-WiFi.
But some still lives, legends like Loma Linda CA, Berkeley, Minneapolis, and others. Some say, if the telco gods are ever smited, then many good things may once again occur in the land of the once-plenty.
>>Muni-WiFi angered the telecom gods, and they rained storms of money up on the legislatures to prevent the airwaves from this abomination.
Not only that, but got some "judges" to rule that it was unconstitutional for a city to put up a municipal wifi network (in some states, at least).
Because, heaven forfend, anyone challenge the oligopoly that is our telecom industry. Competetion? Bah. I'm paying more for cell phone service now than I did ten years ago. I also used to have free tethering. Now, data a
Its being killed by 3G and the iPhone. Five years from now few people will bother with ADSL or cable to the home, so they won't route to wifi.
Laptops are starting to come on the market with 3G modems built in. Telcos are starting to install small cellular base stations close to their customers. Pretty soon I expect the telcos will be doing a lot of the networking which used to be done in house.
No. 3G is nowhere near enough bandwidth, and the "last mile" syndrome has been recreated: Too many 3G users sucking down bandwidth for the "AP" to be able to deliver it effectively.
Wifi won't be killed so easily. As demand for 3G grows in America, the carriers will have to upgrade their network, and we all know how serious they are about that. They'll slack and lag behind (dragging down everyone's 3G speeds).
It will be at least 10 years before we have 3G coverage on even one carrier that can handle enough of a load to completely replace Wifi and have good coverage IMO.
No they won't. They'll do what they typically do raise rates until the demand goes down enough to meet their supply. And if they get regulated, then they'll just kick off anybody that they deem to be fully utilizing the promised service.
WiFi for this sort of thing is probably dead, but it won't be 3G or cell services that kills it, more likely a new technology that's more appropriate to the challenge. But, just because it's probably not going to be city wide doesn't mean it's shouldn't be a part of the s
no offense, but that is ridiculous. there's not a snowflake's chance in hell that, for example, campus-wide wifi will disappear anytime in the next, oh, i don't know, 20 years. maybe what you say is true for the "general population", i.e. in random locations around cities, but there will remain many dense technological "hubs" like university campuses where wifi is pretty much essential.
in other words, most physically co-located large organizations will have virtually pervasive wifi availability for many
While I agree wifi is dead for infrastructure grade WAN connections, it's certainly far from dead when it comes to LAN applications and applications like campus-wide networking, home networks, office networks and so on. This is, of course, what it was designed for. It was not intended for widespread geographic usage like 3G systems are. I do not think we will see 3G replace fixed connections, however. Wired connections are always going to have more bandwidth because they can use the full spectrum without sharing the bandwidth with everyone else in an area. Wifi has plenty of bandwidth for most lan applications, but there's no way you can serve everyone in a large area and have high bandwidth - unless you want a router located every 100 meters or so. There's also a practice limit to how high you can go in terms of frequencies. Some schems suggest going to 4ghz, 8ghz and even 20+ ghz. The problem is as you get that high up, the signals get extremely directional and line-of-sight in their nature. Once you get that high the antenna must be pointed in the direction of the transmitter. Even having it on the opposite side of the laptop from the transmitter will not work. Also, even things like leaves on trees and heavy rain can block signals when it is that high.
So long as 3G providers continue to charge $50/month on top of already overpriced voice plans and cap data usage at 5 GB/month, wired internet connections won't be going anywhere.
So long as 3G providers continue to charge $50/month on top of already overpriced voice plans and cap data usage at 5 GB/month,
They do? I pay A$5, plus 1.5c/MB. Why is the US market so averse to pay-for-what-you-use? A few hundred MB / month gets me lots of email, web, VoIP, navigation. OK, not a lot of high-def you-tube clips or Linux upgrades, but you don't need that when mobile.
3G is no substitute for a proper data pipe.
At 2Mbps real (up to 14 on new standards) it is faster than most public wifi that I have seen, and faster than ADSL in many places. Maybe it is just your local network that is slow and expensive?
The 3G networks dont have the combined bandwidth of all those DSL lines and AT&T and the rest know it. Heck, they cant even maintain basic service on the iphone, for example:
1. I tried downloading a game on 3G from the app store. The iphone told me "Cannot download more than 10 megs on 3G, switch to wifi."
2. Apple has banned the slingplayer client because it uses too much bandwidth.
You honestly think this will replace per household DSL/Cable/fiber? Guess what? I
On a parallel topic, practically every home router now comes with WPA2 on by default. I'm surrounded by a sea of BT home hubs which are probably idle, and can't even connect. Outrageous.
What you're referring to is the biggest problem with WiFi there isn't really enough intelligence built into it for those sorts of densely packed situations. It's not really meant to have more than about 3 routers within range of each other, and even then only if their really spread out on the spectrum due to the overlap on some channels.
If somebody manages to solve that in a reasonably cost effective way, the likelihood of a city wide WiFi set up will dramatically improve.
The problem was that the original plan in many cities was to have free and low cost service. I think they underestimated the cost to setup wifi across the city. The premium package planned in this area was far slower than DSL or cable services and more costly. There's also the possibility that commercial interests by cable and phone companies contributed.
Living in a "wifi city" (Minneapolis) I would like to comment on our municipal wifi and its utter failure. The signal is simply terrible in 90% of residences despite the massive unsightly box on the telephone poll out the window. Frankly this is thanks to the terrible range of B/G wireless. To get a decent signal we will need better tech like WiMax or some form of 4g. As it stands it is nearly impossible to get signal to everybody who wants it.
In my experience the problem is simply that most wirelesss chips in laptops/netbooks can't transmit far enough, if you can see an AP the problem isn't with B/G itself. AFAIK there is no DIY hack to fix this (e.g i don't the antenna mods that can boost your reception range will allow you to transmit further, but i may be wrong), although newer laptops seam to suffer from this problem less.
A buddy of mine lives in Minneapolis in a stucco house. The chicken wire mesh used to hold the stucco onto the house acts as an EMI cage. So he has to be sitting next to a window to get the city WiFi. In this case I wouldn't blame the vendor specifically. But others commenting might be correct about other flaws in the system. I just think the house design for much of residential MPLS might be a contributing factor.
WiFi has a limited future anyway so who cares? The future is becoming increasingly clear... over the next 10-20 years most existing air protocols are likely to be phased out in favor of GSM LTE [wikipedia.org]. LTE (and the "Advanced LTE" which is likely to become the actual deployed 4G technology) offer speeds in the hundreds of megabits/sec range and latency in the ~millisecond range. In fact LTE is very close to the theoretical limits of what is physically possible to do, speed wise. LTE is also being designed with support for femtocells in mind right from the start, in fact, there seems to be growing consensus that 4G mobile networks will primarily be deployed through LTE gateways in the home first with traditional cell-tower style macrocells coming much later.
LTE offers some compelling advantages over the mixed 3G/WiFi tech we use today. Firstly, authentication and billing are solved problems. WiFi is made significantly less useful by the way every public hotspot has its own random billing infrastructure, often with pages that don't work well on mobile devices. Because GSM/UMTS sim cards are secure devices, the same convenience that 3G offers today will be possible everywhere, with operators either paying for the ADSL backhaul on their own, merging with cable/DSL companies to become vertically integrated radio/landline companies, or simply paying people who run LTE femtocells for the cost of the backhaul.
Secondly, LTE is a natively IPv6 based protocol. That means that if you use an LTE/4G enabled NetBook in combination with a home femtocell, there won't be any crap related to WiFi NAT routers as long as you're connecting to an IPv6 site. The devices will probably be controlled and leased by the operators and so won't suffer the same featureitis that has made home internet so flaky and requires so many bizarre workarounds like UPnP today.
Thirdly, hand-off actually works in mobile protocols. 4G/LTE devices will be able to transparently hand-off from your personal home femtocell to a macrocell when you walk outside, to a 3G or even GPRS/2G cell if you roam out of range.... all without you even noticing. Try that with a WiFi based system!
Finally, the LTE protocols include support for true single channel multi-cast. For this reason it can not only replace 2G/3G and WiFi, but also digital terrestrial TV broadcasts, as well as digital and FM radio with no loss in spectrum efficiency due to needless retransmissions.
LTE + IPv6 is the most efficient and user-friendly way to use limited spectrum, period. 20 years from now other air protocols will seem like an anachronism.
Firstly, authentication and billing are solved problems. WiFi is made significantly less useful by the way every public hotspot has its own random billing infrastructure,
Funny most places i go to offer their WiFi for free, i find this a much nicer billing solution than my phone company charging me whatever the fuck they want.
Secondly, LTE is a natively IPv6 based protocol.
WiFi is protocol neutral, so all your IPv6 stuff is meaningless as you can use IPv6 over WiFi, just as easily as IPv4 over WiFi.
Finally, the LTE protocols include support for true single channel multi-cast.
While im no expert on wifi protocols there seams no reason that multicast can't be worked into them.
Thirdly, hand-off actually works in mobile protocols.
I'll give you this one, however I'd rather have a fully controlled home network and only be at the whim of my phone company while im outside.
WiFi hotspots work for covering businesses, but they spend a lot of money for covering and maintaining a small area.
For something like a whole city, WiFi simply isn't the right technology: its range is too limited, the protocols aren't designed for it, and it requires too much maintenance.
Cities can (and probably should) try to offer access in public places: parks, public squares, public buildings.
The range is too short, it always has been too short for any of this sort of stuff. I wish there was a longer range version of Wifi that an ordinary person could actually buy a router for without having to spend thousands.
4G and LTE will always be controlled by large, evil telcos and you will always need a subscription. I doubt anyone will be allowed to set up their own private LTE access point as nice as that would be. It would be nice if there was a version of LTE that you could use in unlicensed spectrum with affordable equipment and without dealing with a mobile phone company and proprietary 'locked down' equipment like that femto cell Verizon has with a GPS to make sure you are not setting up an AP outside the country
I'd bet on it killing it's self. I've worked with wireless (WiFi) for 5 years implementing them in RV parks, Hotels, and Apartment complexes. There are a lot of issues with just the nature of wireless that cause people to fret away from it.
One of the first reasons is there's no seamless way to roam from one access point to another, if it were possible to shell out a few thousand dollars and make all access points go to one gateway using a fiber optic underground network, then it "might" stand a chance but yet again you'll run in to the problem of your radio's not being aggressive enough to roam from one AP (access point) to another on the customer's side. Me and a few of my coworkers in the past have tried many different methods of making it seamless only making it 'kinda seemless' by using 2-3 different radios.
Second reason, is the very nature of wireless it's self, this 2.4ghz, or even 5ghz isn't good with distance as well with going in/around objects that get in it's way, You could be in an RV with an AP less than 20 t, with a 10+ db radio and get 1 bar of signal, but move to a window and it'll go to 4-5 bars? Buildings aren't made to let WiFi go through it. Being in Portland and watching their wireless city project die was sad but they couldn't shell out the support they would need in order for everyone to get connected, and stay connected. We're talking hundreds of brick buildings with very tiny windows. I'm sorry the makers of WiFi never expected it to ever be used in a city-to-city setup, and that my very well caused it to die. Wimax, and G4 networks, are made to tackle city's and City WiFi will never compair.
One of the first reasons is there's no seamless way to roam from one access point to another
Sure there is. Shell out the bucks on some decent enterprise-class APs from Cisco, Aruba, Meru, and friends instead of just tossing up a bunch of Linksys/D-Link consumer-grade widgets. It's good enough for VOIP.
The BBC wants to know what happened to [city wide Wi-Fi]. Shouldn't a news organization like the BBC do some reporting and find out? Certainly more than simply phoning up someone at BT.
I wrote a long article for Ars Technica nearly a year ago [arstechnica.com] that looked at the past, present, and future. The reality hasn't changed much since then.
Most so-called municipal Wi-Fi projects involved a handful of companies absorbing all the initial network cost in exchange for some to no city business and access to citizens for coverage. EarthLink, MetroFi, Kite, and AT&T were the most prominent. EarthLink got out of the business; AT&T still does some metro-scale networking (Riverside), and MetroFi and Kite shut down.
There are a ton of networks run entirely or nearly so for public safety and/or municipal purposes that have been very successfully in Oklahoma City and elsewhere.
Philly officially closed off its city-wide wifi in May 2008 [engadget.com] for reasons clearly stated in the link. When it was up, it was practically unusable anyway. I lived within a block of an access point, and I could never hold a consistent signal. But truth be told, I only used it towards the end of its life.
WiFi is much higher frequency. This means two things. Firstly, it can provide a faster connection and, because higher frequencies carry less far you can provide a faster connection per person even with the same total throughput. This makes it a better choice for things like high streets and cafes where there are a lot of people wanting to use the service. Most mobile phone networks already use an umbrella model, where they have a big cell tower blanketing a large area and then smaller towers giving acce
Who says its stealing? I keep mine open on purpose- if I'm not using the bandwidth, someone else might as well. I pay the same anyway. If its something I don't want snooped, I encrypt it.
It's Just Form (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is the particular technology of wireless communications so important?
Re: (Score:2)
Wifi doesn't cost much for the end-user because most people already have wifi. Wifi infrastructure costs more money for the providers. At the end of the day someone is paying for it. I say we should invest in the most economic technology, but there will be a lot of people with wifi cards who don't agree.
59 square miles (Score:5, Informative)
Minneapolis has complete downtown coverage now.
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/wirelessminneapolis/ [minneapolis.mn.us]
Actually using it right now to post, doesn't really seem like a dead idea from here!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Minneapolis has complete downtown coverage now.
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/wirelessminneapolis/ [minneapolis.mn.us]
Actually using it right now to post, doesn't really seem like a dead idea from here!
You can sign up at http://www.usiwireless.com/ [usiwireless.com], its only $14.95 a month!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Goddamn. I kept waiting for that to happen when I was living there, right smack in the middle of the coverage area ... and it looks like they got it up and running just after I left.
Bellevue, WA (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it in wide use already? Is it holding up? How does its infrastructure and maintenance cost compare to a wider range wireless? To me, it seemed that the biggest drawback to wide area WiFi is that each base station has a very limited range, cellular and WiMax has a range of miles between towers, for WiFi, you might be lucky to cover several houses with one base station. I tried working though all of what it takes, and it just seemed like too much work and too much money spent for too little in return.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Is it in wide use already? Is it holding up?
It's got (somewhat spotty) city-wide coverage, and is in fairly wide use. It's half to two-thirds the cost of comparable speeds of cable or DSL (several speeds available, from 1M/1M to 6M/1M). APs on roughly a 2-block grid, it works well if you're close to one and don't have conductive things in the way (we have a lot of stucco buildings, and stucco is done on a wire mesh base that's pretty good radio shielding). There are (recommended, extra cost) wireless uni
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I used it last weekend -- Obama was in town and the area near the stadium was covered well enough to use before going in. Sadly it didn't make it into the stadium, but it was useful outside.
Milpitas CA just got it this summer, sort of (Score:3, Informative)
I pulled into a parking lot in Milpitas to make a phone call and use my computer. I didn't need to be online for the call, just look at stuff, but I was pleased to see that there was a wireless signal, they've got tons of free access points all over Milpitas, and the signal was pretty good., It wasn't foolproof - they have a login-timeout browser window thingy, and connecting to my company VPN meant killed its connection so it cut me off after about 5 minutes, but that was enough to download any new email,
I hope it is dead. (Score:5, Funny)
I am allergic to Wi-Fi.
And it causes cancer.
It probably contributes to global warming too.
My experience with city-wide Wifi (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem I've had with it is that each access point I've encountered usually requires a login and/or a fee to use. For example, Wifi in Starbucks requires a monthly fee from AT&T (or T-Mobile, can't remember). Across the street the library is free. The McDonalds next door charges $2.95 an hour, along with the Wendy's across the corner. The lobby in the hospital is free but requires a login that only the clerk at the front desk can provide. There is Wifi in the mall that is free.
I think that most people would prefer an all-or-nothing approach. Give me one Wifi experience or forget it. Having to keep track of a new login method every 200-500 feet is a hassle.
Re: (Score:2)
So tell your wireless system to ignore access points that require any sort of login. Then you can pretend they don't exist, and that there's simply less hassle-free WiFi coverage. If you were near the library or mall, you'd see that there's Wifi. Elsewhere, no.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can ignore encrypted access points, but there's no way to detect APs that use an HTML login page until after you're already connected.
Plus, the OP's point (I think) was that instead of paying $3 here and $2 there, why not have a $40/mo fee that buys you access anywhere (home, work, school, play) you go.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The problem I've had with it is that each access point I've encountered usually requires a login and/or a fee to use. For example, Wifi in Starbucks requires a monthly fee from AT&T (or T-Mobile, can't remember). Across the street the library is free. The McDonalds next door charges $2.95 an hour, along with the Wendy's across the corner. The lobby in the hospital is free but requires a login that only the clerk at the front desk can provide. There is Wifi in the mall that is free.
I think that most people would prefer an all-or-nothing approach. Give me one Wifi experience or forget it. Having to keep track of a new login method every 200-500 feet is a hassle.
None of those examples are city-wide Wifi. City-wide Wifi would be one provider providing wifi everywhere with one login
Re:My experience with city-wide Wifi (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA is referring not to de-facto ubiquitous coverage by multiple independent access points, but by a single, centrally run mesh of access points owned and operated (at least partially) by the municipal government.
At least in the USA, this has largely been quashed by the telcos in the courts, claiming that such networks are unfair competition to their price gouging mobile data plans.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a look at http://devicescape.com/ [devicescape.com]
It auto logins to APs with web-based login screens.
Re:My experience with city-wide Wifi (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they're referring to Muni-WiFi, not hotspots.
Muni-WiFi angered the telecom gods, and they rained storms of money up on the legislatures to prevent the airwaves from this abomination.
The hotel/motel gods also were highly upset that their revenues would be stanched, and so also did voice much objection up on the Muni-WiFi.
But some still lives, legends like Loma Linda CA, Berkeley, Minneapolis, and others. Some say, if the telco gods are ever smited, then many good things may once again occur in the land of the once-plenty.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>Muni-WiFi angered the telecom gods, and they rained storms of money up on the legislatures to prevent the airwaves from this abomination.
Not only that, but got some "judges" to rule that it was unconstitutional for a city to put up a municipal wifi network (in some states, at least).
Because, heaven forfend, anyone challenge the oligopoly that is our telecom industry. Competetion? Bah. I'm paying more for cell phone service now than I did ten years ago. I also used to have free tethering. Now, data a
Wifi is effectively dead (Score:2, Insightful)
Its being killed by 3G and the iPhone. Five years from now few people will bother with ADSL or cable to the home, so they won't route to wifi.
Laptops are starting to come on the market with 3G modems built in. Telcos are starting to install small cellular base stations close to their customers. Pretty soon I expect the telcos will be doing a lot of the networking which used to be done in house.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
No. 3G is nowhere near enough bandwidth, and the "last mile" syndrome has been recreated: Too many 3G users sucking down bandwidth for the "AP" to be able to deliver it effectively.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Will the USA move to metric at last?
Not in my lifetime, I am sure.
Re:Wifi is effectively dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Wifi won't be killed so easily. As demand for 3G grows in America, the carriers will have to upgrade their network, and we all know how serious they are about that. They'll slack and lag behind (dragging down everyone's 3G speeds).
It will be at least 10 years before we have 3G coverage on even one carrier that can handle enough of a load to completely replace Wifi and have good coverage IMO.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
WiFi for this sort of thing is probably dead, but it won't be 3G or cell services that kills it, more likely a new technology that's more appropriate to the challenge. But, just because it's probably not going to be city wide doesn't mean it's shouldn't be a part of the s
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
in other words, most physically co-located large organizations will have virtually pervasive wifi availability for many
Re:Wifi is effectively dead (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Wifi is effectively dead (Score:5, Insightful)
So long as 3G providers continue to charge $50/month on top of already overpriced voice plans and cap data usage at 5 GB/month, wired internet connections won't be going anywhere.
3G is no substitute for a proper data pipe.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So long as 3G providers continue to charge $50/month on top of already overpriced voice plans and cap data usage at 5 GB/month,
They do? I pay A$5, plus 1.5c/MB. Why is the US market so averse to pay-for-what-you-use?
A few hundred MB / month gets me lots of email, web, VoIP, navigation. OK, not a lot of high-def you-tube clips or Linux upgrades, but you don't need that when mobile.
3G is no substitute for a proper data pipe.
At 2Mbps real (up to 14 on new standards) it is faster than most public wifi that I have seen, and faster than ADSL in many places. Maybe it is just your local network that is slow and expensive?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
>Its being killed by 3G and the iPhone.
The 3G networks dont have the combined bandwidth of all those DSL lines and AT&T and the rest know it. Heck, they cant even maintain basic service on the iphone, for example:
1. I tried downloading a game on 3G from the app store. The iphone told me "Cannot download more than 10 megs on 3G, switch to wifi."
2. Apple has banned the slingplayer client because it uses too much bandwidth.
You honestly think this will replace per household DSL/Cable/fiber? Guess what? I
Dying, dying, dead. (Score:5, Funny)
On a parallel topic, practically every home router now comes with WPA2 on by default.
I'm surrounded by a sea of BT home hubs which are probably idle, and can't even connect.
Outrageous.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If somebody manages to solve that in a reasonably cost effective way, the likelihood of a city wide WiFi set up will dramatically improve.
Cost and Competition (Score:2)
The problem was that the original plan in many cities was to have free and low cost service. I think they underestimated the cost to setup wifi across the city. The premium package planned in this area was far slower than DSL or cable services and more costly. There's also the possibility that commercial interests by cable and phone companies contributed.
Wifi B/G can't cut it. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In my experience the problem is simply that most wirelesss chips in laptops/netbooks can't transmit far enough, if you can see an AP the problem isn't with B/G itself. AFAIK there is no DIY hack to fix this (e.g i don't the antenna mods that can boost your reception range will allow you to transmit further, but i may be wrong), although newer laptops seam to suffer from this problem less.
Is your house stucco? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
No "technology" killed it ... (Score:2)
... unless you count political manipulation by telecoms as a "technology."
WiFi in general is going to die (Score:5, Interesting)
WiFi has a limited future anyway so who cares? The future is becoming increasingly clear ... over the next 10-20 years most existing air protocols are likely to be phased out in favor of GSM LTE [wikipedia.org]. LTE (and the "Advanced LTE" which is likely to become the actual deployed 4G technology) offer speeds in the hundreds of megabits/sec range and latency in the ~millisecond range. In fact LTE is very close to the theoretical limits of what is physically possible to do, speed wise. LTE is also being designed with support for femtocells in mind right from the start, in fact, there seems to be growing consensus that 4G mobile networks will primarily be deployed through LTE gateways in the home first with traditional cell-tower style macrocells coming much later.
LTE offers some compelling advantages over the mixed 3G/WiFi tech we use today. Firstly, authentication and billing are solved problems. WiFi is made significantly less useful by the way every public hotspot has its own random billing infrastructure, often with pages that don't work well on mobile devices. Because GSM/UMTS sim cards are secure devices, the same convenience that 3G offers today will be possible everywhere, with operators either paying for the ADSL backhaul on their own, merging with cable/DSL companies to become vertically integrated radio/landline companies, or simply paying people who run LTE femtocells for the cost of the backhaul.
Secondly, LTE is a natively IPv6 based protocol. That means that if you use an LTE/4G enabled NetBook in combination with a home femtocell, there won't be any crap related to WiFi NAT routers as long as you're connecting to an IPv6 site. The devices will probably be controlled and leased by the operators and so won't suffer the same featureitis that has made home internet so flaky and requires so many bizarre workarounds like UPnP today.
Thirdly, hand-off actually works in mobile protocols. 4G/LTE devices will be able to transparently hand-off from your personal home femtocell to a macrocell when you walk outside, to a 3G or even GPRS/2G cell if you roam out of range .... all without you even noticing. Try that with a WiFi based system!
Finally, the LTE protocols include support for true single channel multi-cast. For this reason it can not only replace 2G/3G and WiFi, but also digital terrestrial TV broadcasts, as well as digital and FM radio with no loss in spectrum efficiency due to needless retransmissions.
LTE + IPv6 is the most efficient and user-friendly way to use limited spectrum, period. 20 years from now other air protocols will seem like an anachronism.
Re:WiFi in general is going to die (Score:4, Insightful)
Firstly, authentication and billing are solved problems. WiFi is made significantly less useful by the way every public hotspot has its own random billing infrastructure,
Funny most places i go to offer their WiFi for free, i find this a much nicer billing solution than my phone company charging me whatever the fuck they want.
Secondly, LTE is a natively IPv6 based protocol.
WiFi is protocol neutral, so all your IPv6 stuff is meaningless as you can use IPv6 over WiFi, just as easily as IPv4 over WiFi.
Finally, the LTE protocols include support for true single channel multi-cast.
While im no expert on wifi protocols there seams no reason that multicast can't be worked into them.
Thirdly, hand-off actually works in mobile protocols.
I'll give you this one, however I'd rather have a fully controlled home network and only be at the whim of my phone company while im outside.
Parent
it doesn't work (Score:2)
WiFi hotspots work for covering businesses, but they spend a lot of money for covering and maintaining a small area.
For something like a whole city, WiFi simply isn't the right technology: its range is too limited, the protocols aren't designed for it, and it requires too much maintenance.
Cities can (and probably should) try to offer access in public places: parks, public squares, public buildings.
The problem with WiFi (Score:3, Insightful)
4G and LTE will always be controlled by large, evil telcos and you will always need a subscription. I doubt anyone will be allowed to set up their own private LTE access point as nice as that would be. It would be nice if there was a version of LTE that you could use in unlicensed spectrum with affordable equipment and without dealing with a mobile phone company and proprietary 'locked down' equipment like that femto cell Verizon has with a GPS to make sure you are not setting up an AP outside the country
Cable Companies (Score:2)
Cablevision is gradually WiFi'ing their entire subscription area.
It's wifi's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd bet on it killing it's self. I've worked with wireless (WiFi) for 5 years implementing them in RV parks, Hotels, and Apartment complexes. There are a lot of issues with just the nature of wireless that cause people to fret away from it.
One of the first reasons is there's no seamless way to roam from one access point to another, if it were possible to shell out a few thousand dollars and make all access points go to one gateway using a fiber optic underground network, then it "might" stand a chance but yet again you'll run in to the problem of your radio's not being aggressive enough to roam from one AP (access point) to another on the customer's side. Me and a few of my coworkers in the past have tried many different methods of making it seamless only making it 'kinda seemless' by using 2-3 different radios.
Second reason, is the very nature of wireless it's self, this 2.4ghz, or even 5ghz isn't good with distance as well with going in/around objects that get in it's way, You could be in an RV with an AP less than 20 t, with a 10+ db radio and get 1 bar of signal, but move to a window and it'll go to 4-5 bars? Buildings aren't made to let WiFi go through it. Being in Portland and watching their wireless city project die was sad but they couldn't shell out the support they would need in order for everyone to get connected, and stay connected. We're talking hundreds of brick buildings with very tiny windows. I'm sorry the makers of WiFi never expected it to ever be used in a city-to-city setup, and that my very well caused it to die. Wimax, and G4 networks, are made to tackle city's and City WiFi will never compair.
Re:It's wifi's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
You could be in an RV with an AP less than 20 t, with a 10+ db radio and get 1 bar of signal, but move to a window and it'll go to 4-5 bars?
Note: being inside an RV is similar to being inside a Faraday Cage.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sure there is. Shell out the bucks on some decent enterprise-class APs from Cisco, Aruba, Meru, and friends instead of just tossing up a bunch of Linksys/D-Link consumer-grade widgets. It's good enough for VOIP.
How about a little reporting (Score:3, Funny)
The BBC wants to know what happened to [city wide Wi-Fi].
Shouldn't a news organization like the BBC do some reporting and find out? Certainly more than simply phoning up someone at BT.
Re:How about a little reporting (Score:4, Informative)
They wanted to, but they had no wi-fi coverage in the pub where they wrote the article, so they couldn't get on to Wikipedia.
Parent
Year-old Ars Technica piece covers similar ground (Score:3, Informative)
I wrote a long article for Ars Technica nearly a year ago [arstechnica.com] that looked at the past, present, and future. The reality hasn't changed much since then.
Most so-called municipal Wi-Fi projects involved a handful of companies absorbing all the initial network cost in exchange for some to no city business and access to citizens for coverage. EarthLink, MetroFi, Kite, and AT&T were the most prominent. EarthLink got out of the business; AT&T still does some metro-scale networking (Riverside), and MetroFi and Kite shut down.
There are a ton of networks run entirely or nearly so for public safety and/or municipal purposes that have been very successfully in Oklahoma City and elsewhere.
Philadelphia (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
WiFi is much higher frequency. This means two things. Firstly, it can provide a faster connection and, because higher frequencies carry less far you can provide a faster connection per person even with the same total throughput. This makes it a better choice for things like high streets and cafes where there are a lot of people wanting to use the service. Most mobile phone networks already use an umbrella model, where they have a big cell tower blanketing a large area and then smaller towers giving acce
Re:4G? WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who says its stealing? I keep mine open on purpose- if I'm not using the bandwidth, someone else might as well. I pay the same anyway. If its something I don't want snooped, I encrypt it.
Parent