Slashdot Mirror
Can 802.11 Become A Viable Last-Mile Alternative?
NikiScevak writes "As telco's around the world move from government hands to private investors the incentive for them to create compeition at the wholesale DSL level drops dramatically. The CSIRO in Australia are investigating the use of Wireless LAN technology 802.11b as a means through which to provide alternative broadband access, achieving range of up to 7km with standard components."
Don't believe in privatization -> more competition as a dogma, since it is not always true. There are cases where privatization -> profit maximation of one monopolist.
It all depends on the market. As for local loop: there is only one local loop, it is fully uneconomical to make a second one. Alternatives (such as wireless) are inferior, especially on a large scale. Maybe a second local loop is possible (being cable) in some areas, but still, two companies with no chance for more doesn't really give competition. There shall be (silent, because it's forbidden) agreement between two companies to share and divide the market.
Nothing is worse than the combination of monopoly and privatization.
Privatization with true competition is best.
If this is not possible (true for many infrastructure markets such as railways, local loop, utilities such as water etc) then the next best alternative is to create a publicly owned non-profit organization that just manages the infrastructure.
Private companies should compete to offer sericces over that publicly owned infrastructure.
Old example is (publicly owned) roads where many transport companies compete to offer moving goods using trucks, using the public roads.
New example can be publicly owned local loop that is offered to customers at cost price. Then the customer can select a provider that delivers him full internet service via this (cheap) local loop.
The costs to the service provider may also be significantly less than using the full Telstra ADSL or ISDN service. In some areas they may only need to put an antenna on the roof of their office and pay Telstra for the connection to the backbone (instead of having to also rent wires to their customers).
I'm amazed by the number of people in Australia who ditch their ISP due to poor quality connections, and then have the same problem with the next ISP - and don't realise that everything is coming down the same wire controlled by the same telecommunications company.
To all those who are confused as to who Telstra is, it is the formerly government owned, half privatised telecommunications company that owns most of the communications in Australia. The remainder is owned by Optus/Singtel, a mainly Singapore government owned telecommunications company, which has a few lines, provides cable TV and broadband to a few small areas and has a mobile phone network. These half privatised companies have most of the worst aspects of both goverment (a we rule you attitude) and private enterprise (more charges for less service all of the time). The way they are heading, full privatisation will turn them into monsters that make the worst multinational mining corporations look like a charities. Therefore, anything that increases the choice here is good.
All the other telecommunications companies mainly just rent space on those two networks.
As others have pointed out there are numerous technical problems with wireless if used at a large scale. It is all the more irrational knowing that there is already a good last mile in place: the local loop. Mostly it has been paid for with tax money, i.e. you could say that everyone owns its own local loop.
Thus, it is only logical to separate the local loop from the service providers. Create a non-profit (public owned) company that maintains the local loop and offers it at cost price. The telecom companies can compete to offer service over this public infrastructure.
Just like the road system (which is mostly public in most countries). Everyone can use them for a relatively small amount of money. Imagine the situation where there would be no public roads, but the 'local transport company' alone would build and own roads and offer their transport services (trucks, taxis) in one package; since you can hardly have 3 different roads leading to your house, you would be dependant on 1 or maybe 2 transport companies if you want to use the road leading to your house.
Would privatization solve such an absurd situation? No, since no true competition can't exist even if the transport companies would be privately owned (i.e. strive for maximum profit).
The only solution is to have a public infrastructure, and have private companies compete using this public infrastructure.
The polititians that essentially gave away the local loop to a privatized telecom operator (i.e. they gave away something that the public has paid for) made a huge mistake. This must be corrected.
802.11 is about as secure as your wired LAN or any other unencrypted traffic flying out of your computer. Security is an end-to-end argument and it does not behoove the protocol to make any security guarantees (neither ethernet nor 802.11 do this).
Sorry, but that is a crock of total bullshit. I agree with your second sentence (end-to-end, certainly), but what sort of a comparison is wired LAN to 802.11.
The office I work in currently has a slightly less secured LAN than it used to, because we're running 32 sets of CAT5 between level 2 and level 5 of a building we don't own. Anyone who can access them, and work single _one_ of them is actually carrying network traffic (as opposed to phone or just sitting black) could probably stick a 100Mb switch in between and I wouldn't notice (it would have to talk 100 Full Duplex or I would notice the lights).
To do this, they would need to gain access to the building (either during business hours, with a stolen swipe card (or a legit one if the work in the building)) - then access the roofs of either level 2 or 5, or maybe the comms riser - without being asked any questions, or by evading questions.
Once they had access, they would have to either install a scanning device there, and come back every so often to collect data, create a link out (possibly using 802.11 even) - or sneakiest of all, send packets back out through our network and hope I didn't notice the traffic (quite possible really, I don't monitor everything the workstations send that closely, and spoofing a hardware address on packets would probably work quite nicely. Win98 won't be logging unexpected reply packets, and if they spoof something from upstairs, the switch downstairs will send the replies up that wire).
Oh, or they could crack a box I already have and install a scanner on that. Would involve doing the crack of course.
.... what was my point - oh yeah, with 802.11, they sit in a car in the 6 story car park about 30 metres straight out the window and listen to every packet - no chance of getting caught (well, shit all chance anyway), no complex equipment required (say $1000 for a second hand laptop and $500 for the card - the car costs more than that too I guess, if you want to count that.. or their clothes for that matter).
Electronic attacks against a LAN are a lot more complex and expensive, so please stop spreading such FUD. 802.11 breaks the physical barriers in a way that any but the most stupidly laid LANS (wires on the outside of the building anyone) don't.