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WiFi & Cellular Unite

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-together-right-now dept.

blake213 writes "Newsfactor is reporting a story on how WiFi Metro and Green Packet are teaming up to do a 90-day field test of combined WiFi and cellular romaing technologies in the S.F. Bay Area. Supposedly a user can roam between two coverage areas with uninterrupted service."

6 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Re:GPRS by blacksmith · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm a bit confused, though. Isn't this what GPRS is supposed to accomplish?

    WiFi runs a lot faster than GPRS. Eight slot GPRS will give you about 115.2 kbps, whereas WiFi gives you ~10 Mbps. Both are best case figures.

  2. Re:GPRS by tomsparrow · · Score: 2, Informative

    GPRS is only 2.5G though, 3G will close the gap slightly. I do wonder if it's worth the effort given what you can use a portable device for anyway.
    Email and web browsing don't need 10Mbps. I suppose you could pull MP3's (or vorbis) while wandering round town, but I would still get them at home where bandwidth is (and will be for some time yet) cheaper and carry them with me.

    "3G promises increased bandwidth, up to 384 Kbps when a device is stationary or moving at pedestrian speed, 128 Kbps in a car, and 2 Mbps in fixed applications." (Webopedia)

  3. Phreak City by joe_fish · · Score: 2, Informative
    Well I dont see any reason why this is not possible - the hardware for WiFi and Cellular would seem to be *fairly* similar technology (radio + CPU). So in theory if you could register on one network, and when signal strength goes down, just register on the other. The biggest technical problem from what I can see would be for IP addrs and routers.

    But you can bet it will be a phreakers heaven. Bruce Schneier is always saying that holes occur when you try to force together 2 systems that were not designed to work with each other.

    I'm willing to bet that stealing other users sessions will be common place for quite a while if they ever get the thing into full production ...

    --
    DWR is Ajax for Java
  4. Re:GPRS by dk.r*nger · · Score: 2, Informative

    Basically, yes..

    But you still have to pay for GPRS access ($20/mb in Denmark), whereas Wi-Fi is free and thus prefered over mobile access when available..

    - Ranger

  5. Re:I was thinking... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Sprint tested a wireless local loop plan in my town (Des Moines, IA) called Sprint Home Phone. I tried it for a few months and the service sucked so I dropped it. I can't find any info on it now, (maybe everybody thought it sucked) but the wayback machine has some stuff.
    I don't see why similar hardware can't be used with any provider, though.

    http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sprintho me phone.com/

    http://web.archive.org/web/20010302193958/sprint ho mephone.com/WiLL-1900SC.asp

  6. Re:Where's the Linux competition for Pocket PC? by tomsparrow · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think some people might disagree with the being no linux alternatives.