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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."
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.
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.