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Wireless Internet Finally Coming To London
andylaurence writes: "NTL has issued a statement on their site of their intentions to trial highspeed wireless Internet access in London. They don't seem to know whether it will continue after the trial, but they have stated that it will cost £25 a month (the same as their cable modems). One would assume that this will be based on an 802.11b network, and the questions will then arise as to how secure this is. Another company also seem to be pioneering wireless Internet access this month, with a trial due to start soon. Seems to me like this might just take off." Wait -- I thought London already had wireless access.
Of course, in great brittish tradition, your internet use will be monitored by the sanctioned Almightly Monarchy and if you are found doing anything naughty or contradictory to the crown, your name will be cross-referenced with your driver's license, your picture pulled from the database, your face tracked down through the public video camera/privacy invasion systems and publically humiliated and flogged.
Isn't is GPRS ? Which is based on GSM technology, but reserving (and sharing) N 9.6kbps slots for every user.
Rates may go as great as 144 kbps, which for mobile users may be fine, waiting for UMTS.
Microsoft has performed an illegal operation
and will be shut down.
If the problem persists, contact the program
vendor.
On the other hand they don't cost much really.
Claric
There's no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable amount of high explosives
Let's just hope it turns out better than these guys did. Thud! ::ducks::
Do you like German cars?
I'm curious as to why "one would assume that this is based on 802.11b" ... ? Their page clearly says that your PC must already be Ethernet-capable; if it were based on 802.11b, I would think they would use one of the widely available 802.11 adapters and an external antenna.
The fact of the matter is that this is not what 802.11 is intended for. It is intended for local LAN access. While many organizations are trying to (and having some success) move it into the long distance market, that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for an ISP. There are plenty of other ways to push bits over the airwaves, guys.
EthanMost of England is far from being a 1st world country. Telecommunication costs are through the roof too. Do they really expect many to take up the offer?
it will cost £25 a month
Just add the bill onto the taxes and provide it to all citizens in grande British tradition.
Seriously, it is cool to see this technology spreading. The best way for security to increase is for it to become commonly used.
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The article only says it will be compatible with
...
Windows 95, 98, ME, and 2000 Professional. What about all other operating systems supporting 802.11 ?
I'm sure people with a Titanium, iBook, Linux or BSD laptop would like to join in too
Their claim to be the first wireless Internet service in London may or may not be correct. However the post-production houses of Soho have had their own private wireless network for a number of years now.
(\/)atthew
(\/)atthew
I wouldn't trust a 'company' without a decent setup as far as I could throw them! Their domain name just contains an embedded FRAME which gets its content from a page on a Free ISP!
Quality...
802.11 is not licensed for commercial use in the UK. So I'm pretty sure that NTL's offering won't be based on 802.11.
An outfit called Tele2 already offers wireless, always on, 512K connections in parts of the UK. I know someone who's got one and runs a web server from it and is happy. Well, as happy as you get round Camberly. Not sure of the exact technical details but "there's a thing on the roof which connects by coax to a box of tricks which has an RJ45 plug on it". Range is pretty limited ,but speed apparently OK.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
From the statement: One must "Have unobstructed view of one of our transmitter locations"
...
;-)
Wonder what kind of technology that is
Given that 802.11 only reaches about a 100-300 meters with an open view, they probably need MANY access points
not London, but see also www.tele2.co.uk
NTL's press release says you must "Have unobstructed view of one of our transmitter locations"
this sounds similar to tele2 as it also requires line-of-sight.
Duncan
We've only been putting photos on driving licences for a few years now (I forget when they were introduced, but it was =5 years ago). Most of the population still doesn't have them. Furthermore, IIRC you can't be hung for treason (e.g. burning bank notes) anymore, though this law was rarely used when it was in place anyway.
To be honest, the monarchy only has a symbolic power over the government. Technically, the monarch has the final say in which party gets elected, but I don't imagine they'd be too popular if they tried to go against public opinion. And we've got rid of monarchs before after all (search for British Civil War).
You are, however, pretty much spot on about the prevalence of CCTV - I hear us Brits (particularly Londoners) get our picture taken by these cameras more frequently than most Americans. And our government seems to be just as willing as as the US one to eat away at our rights.
I know you were only joking (or at least both I and the moderators thought so), but I just felt like being pedantic.
With the population density of London, I would think that one or two loosely affiliated 802.11b networks would give coverage would rival any commercial offering.
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
Because in the UK that spectrum is only allocated to non commercial use. You cannot setup a commercial wirless network in this spectrum.
[Please type your sig here.]
I can't find anything to back this up, but I'd imagine that this is using the spectrum recently auctioned in the UK for fixed wireless access. That covers spectrum in the 28GHz, 40 GHz, 3.4 GHz and 10GHz frequencies. See ZDNet article here for details.
We're not talking wireless in the home here, just wireless *to* to the home, replacing the NTL cable. As the FAQ points out:
"A signal is transmitted from various locations throughout London and is received by the outdoor transceiver on the side of the property. The cable modem recognises this signal and converts it into standard data packets that your PC will recognise."
As a previous poster has mentioned, charging for 2.4 GHz bandwidth in the UK is currently against the licensing regulations anyway.
Why would one assume that a city-wide wireless network would use 802.11b? Aside from the WEP encryption issues, 802.11b is such a short-range system that it would require a tremendous infrastructure to implement, and would also blanket the city with interference for people who wanted to use 802.11b for its intended LAWN (Local area wireless network) uses.
True, Ricochet failed, and 128Kbps is starting to seem paltry, but there are plenty of other wireless standards out there that are far more suitable for high-speed wide area wireless coverage, G3 being one of them.
If London is creating a new network from scratch, I would assume they'd use a current technology, and one geared specifically for their type of needs, and not create a piecemeal solution with microcells which either all have to be individually wired to the net via high-speed connection (every 100 yards) or act as repeaters (ala Ricochet) resulting in 500ms ping rates on good days.
Anyone know any other standards that would better apply to a high-speed wide-coverage omnidirectional wireless net?
Kevin Fox
"I hear us Brits (particularly Londoners) get our picture taken by these cameras more frequently than most Americans"
:-)
Did any other Londoner misread this first time for "by most Americans"? Gentle tourist jibe, no offence meant
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
is this 512k upstream, downstream, or both ways??
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
If you'd spend two minutes looking at the website you would see that you can have up to 1Mbps each way, depending on how much you want to pay.
The absolute basic is 512 up 256 down.
Surely London, with its high population density, is ideal for cabling up? Why not carry out the trial in an area that is flat but sparsely populated hence uneconomic to run cable to households? And it won't be the whole of London as the franchaise there is split between NTL and Telewest (Cable London was bought by Telewest). Speaking as a consumer I am glad NTL is offering (or for now investigating) a greater choice of solutions.
I have their cable modem service which is *excellent*. My friend 1 mile away is green with envy as his long country road hasn't been cabled up. If they offered wireless here then he would be able to swap mixes with his fellow DJs over the 'net instead of burning CDs and petrol.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Both ways.
Aparently, the pr0n gets a bit slow just after pub closing time, but apart from that, it's sound.
Of course, if you live in a valley in Wales then it'll always be quicker to phone someone in Reading, get them to print out the pages and post them to you.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
The discussion seems to focus on mobile internet, while it seems to me that some kind of fixed wireless solution is more likely what they're talking about. 512 Mbs and line of sigh suggests that, I think. There's a company operating that here in Amsterdam since two years or something.
Will it come to pass that big business will control the internet to such a extent that I'll have to get my mates mate to host my anti-DMCA website in a van doing loops around nelsons colium.
UK GNP = $1042.7 billion
Portugal GNP = $77.7 billion
UK Population = 58.2 million
Portugal Population = 9.8 million
Therefore, GNP per capita =
$17,900 in UK
$7,900 in Portugal
Sure, there's a lot of poverty, but there's a lot of rich people too. With a population of 58.2 million (probably more now) there's always going to be a lot of people at either end of the bell curve. It sucks that we can't all be well off and have a high standard of living, but we're a G7 country for goodness sake - there's not really much question of whether we're a first-world country or not.
Yes, the telecomms infrastructure is still lagging at the moment (cellular networks not included, because they're pretty good) - that's largely a hangover from the days of British Telecom's rule. But every major aspect of the telecomms that's opened up has been invaded by companies who're willing and able to offer cheaper options. And there's plenty of companies (particularly in London, but elsewhere too, like Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester) who're prepared to invest in telecomms.
I'd also like to know how many people (percentage) in Portugal use the net, and what percentage of those are on broadband, and how that compares to the UK, but since I've already looked up some statistics, I think it's your turn.
See http://www.radio.gov.uk/publication/press/2000/20o ct00.htm for the spectrum (10 GHz) used by NTL - this rules out 802.11b, which works at 2.4 GHz only.
/ broadband_ovum.html
They are using some variant of 'fixed wireless', also known as wireless local loop (WLL) - this is intended only to serve fixed sites, as the name implies, and uses a variety of spectrum from 2 GHz up to 30+ GHz - these technologies go by various names including MMDS and LMDS.
The good news is that this is licensed spectrum, so performance is determined by the network operator, not by the number of people near you with wireless LANs, and coverage is generally much better (802.11b would be quite an expensive way to try to cover a whole city).
Fixed wireless access (FWA) is already being deployed by various operators in the US (Sprint, Worldcom) and UK (Tele2, around Reading). It has a chequered history with various bankruptcies (Teligent in the US, Ionica in the UK), but if the costs come down and standards are agreed, it could be a useful competitor to Cable and xDSL, particularly for areas they don't address (e.g. industrial/business areas, and rural areas).
For more information, see http://www.watmag.com/technologies/Broadband/ovum
The key to understanding this announcement is that ntl own all the transmitters up and down the country that are used to transmit all non-BBC television and radio.
If ntl can get this trial working in London, they should be able to roll other the service nationwide.
This would beat anything done on any cabled (both cable TV and phone lines) service, and be cheaper too.
Some people will doubtless think that 802.11b is still an attractive protocol. These people might argue that people won't be sniffing wireless ethernets anytime soon, as the exploit requires a high degree of technical proficiency. However, it only requires one person to discover a network's password.
So, I am totally against any move anywhere which entrusts the public's data to a broken standard like 802.11b with WEP. I think it is important to convince people of WEP's almost total lack of value.
Help convince people not to trust 802.11b WEP. Use AirSnort to crack 802.11b networks. I won't be happy until hardware manufacturers are pressured into releasing a standard which doesn't suck (what a novel idea.)
And remember, friends don't let friends fall victim to a partially known key attack.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
Tele2 already provide a wireless broadband service to a fair chunk of England (but not London at the moment).
They charge £39.99 ($60) for 512k downstream/256k upstream, which compares pretty well with the fixed UK broadband (I have a 512/128k cable modem from NTL which is £19.99 ($30) a month).
Register interest using email instead
They already have cable and ADSL in most of London... why would they need (or want) wireless access?
They should trial things like that over here in the Lake District. The cable companies simply refuse to lay any cable down in most of this area (because it'd cost too much to do so), and BT are dragging their feet too much with ADSL. Which means we're stuck with 56K or (if you're lucky, like me) ISDN.
But with wireless access, we'd be bypassing the need for expensive cable-laying, and also bypassing the incredibly slow BT. Just what we need.
totally agree. I was being double charged for about 3 months after switching from dial-up access to cable.
Refund? Try talking to one of their reps and make sense, or even just locating the right one, and you'll see what I mean!
Basically no-one in NTL knows which department deals with what. God knows why they'd put me through to cable and wireless business relations centre when I just wanted to know the pop3 address so I could get my e-mails!
/rant>
Slighly Off-topic, but British Telecom are planning to launch a Broadband Satellite Internet service across the UK in the next couple of years. However BT is currently struggling with a massive debt mountain, so it's not too clear if the timescale will hold.
Maybe i'm wrong, but cant someone just jam a signal pretty easily?. Even if its illegal know ones going to catch them if they do it for a few mins then move around the city.. come to think of it that would be true of mobile phones too.. and police and other services, and air-traffic control - why, i could take over the WORLD!!! BA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA... well, maybe just one city anyway.
-tfga
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
My guess is that it's similar to Sprint's wireless Broadband offering
Sprint has similar "line of sight" requirements, and a range of (last I checked) 35-40 miles from the broadcast point.
Oh yeah, they've also been in business for since 1997ish...
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Albert Einstein
Overheard in the phone shoppe just yesterday...
"Sorry, squire, our wireless is a bit runny."
-nd
In our particular case it took 23 phone calls and 2 weeks to arrange for a telephone and a cable modem in our new house which the previous occupants had already had NTL installed in!
NTL are and talk shit.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I think it's actually the 4th biggest now (saw newsnight a while back and remember being astounded), but after a bit of trawling I can't find anything to back this up. Any economists out there?
Because that's all you've heard of?
There are other protocols that are more suited towards wide-area distribution of internet access....
http://www.waverider.com
There are other protocols that are better suited towards the larger distances associated with giving everyone internet access to the home wirelessly.
With 802.11b, sure, you could have access points all over the place... but it's by no means the most efficient or best way to do it.
I suggest you travel to a few 2nd and 3rd world countries before making that judgement.
Also.... beelive it or not, a good wireless system is the *answer* to lack of telecom infrastructure; it's much cheaper to deploy.
http://www.waverider.com
GNP/GDP are *Not* measures, by any means, of quality-of-life. They are purely financial. War and death also make them go up; they are indifferent indices.
,Canada, and the UK than I've seen anywhere in Portugal.
Portugal may have a low GNP, but they are certainly not in 'Poverty'. They work the land; are largeley self sufficient from region to region, and simply are not that modernized; they don't HAVE to be. They are comfortable, healthy people from what I've seen. I've seen MUCh worse living conditions in the US
It's the nature of their economy; their self-sufficiency and lack of exports that makes them 'appear' poor.
The 2.4Ghz ISM band is licensed for localized use in the UK. Cordless phones, wireless LAN, medical and scientific insturmentation, microwave ovens, etc....It's NOT licensed for telecom-type use. You can't 'sell' internet access, and build up towers and tramist all over the place using the 2.4Ghz ISM band... it violates the license. It's NOT licensed the same way it is in North America.
spot-on, they just don't offer their service in London. It's NTL that are trialling THIS wireless service, using a licence granted to Mercury which became CWC which sold their consumer infrastructure to NTL. A someone living in W1 all I can say is ABOUT FSCHKING TIME!
That was classic intercourse!
there's loads of related stats at oecd.org, and yes, the UK is the fourth largest world economy now, it overtook France only because the OECD measures in US Dollars and the Euro situation has pushed us up. The French are still richer than us, just not is USD. It is, however, plainly ridiculous to look at London as anything other than one of the world's richest cities. At a rough guesstimate, I reckon London's economy would be at least four times that of PORTUGAL'S.
That was classic intercourse!
...it was just a counter to the suggestion that the U.K. is too broke to implement a wireless network in London (back up the thread a way). I accept that GNP per capita is a pretty basic means of comparison, but it does give you an idea of the situation. Please don't mis-interpret my defence of the U.K. economy as a slur on the Portugese economy.
....yet. Let's do what we can to make sure we don't ever get it. Write to your MP!
If you can afford to live there, surely you can afford your own T1?
Signed - impoverished of Epsom.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
... it's based on 802.11
http://www.consume.net/
"Fed up with being held to ransom in the local loop, phased by fees to ISP's, concious of community? OK so lets build a fresh network, one
that is local, global, fast, expanding, public and user-constructed.
This website outlines the strategy for such a network and the progress being made toward its establishment.
We now have a searchable database of CONSUME nodes operational or proposed.
Please Register your NODE..!"