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Project Rainbow - 802.11 Across the U.S.
rakerman writes "IBM, Intel and a number of wireless services operators are considering building a wireless data network across the U.S., according to the New York Times."
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Because there's a big fat pot of gold at the end: freedom from the tyranny of the DSL/Cable monopolies.
Questions to ponder:
1) Will the punnily named Current Techonologies succeed in bringing IP over AC to households everywhere, bringing yet another monopoly to bear in the war for household broadband... and
2) How will the 802.11 spectrum deal with multiple, competing wireless carriers when/if the spectrum becomes clogged with them?
I still can't get a cable modem OR DSL in my house, so bring it on.
Does that make anyone else think of a gay pride parade slogan? I'm not homophobic, just stating what popped into my mind! I do think it is a pretty good idea, as long as MS doesn't force them to use their new 802.11b secuirty implementations they claim they are releasing later this year... Although I doubt this will succede. A lot of people have interference problems in their own home, let alone cross-country. Anyone care to come up with an estimate on how many base stations would be needed to cover all the US? I bet it's a lot!
today is spelling optional day.
...I'll finally be able to surf for pr0n and read slashdot in traffic? Now all I need are tinted windows....
Who did what now?
Damn, I'm going to have to buy a whole assload of chalk now!!
If they do this, is there any point in building G3/G4 mobile phone networks?
id like my phone to work everywhere first!
if they cant do that how are they ever going to do this?
I want 2D games back.
I have driven cross-country several times now, and nothing would've make the entire state of Kansas more cool than being able to surf the web while riding through it.
sorry, but it's true.
Sure it would be cool to have the long promised everywhere, everywhen connectivity. But aside from the technical issues (e.g. what version of the standard), it's difficult to see us getting anywhere close to the point where enough people are willing to plop down the requisite amount of monthly $$'s to make this viable.
Pick a number: $50/month, $100/month? How much are you willing to pony up for patchy wireless internet connectivity primarily in relatively heavily populated areas? Consider that even broadband penetration seems to have plateaued to a large degree in the areas where it is available. Not everyone's willing to pay $40-$50/month for better computer access.
It'll be the same as when DSL and cable started becoming more popular... people will have to learn how to protect themselves. Even my parents know what a firewall is, now... (it's built into that old computer on the floor in the basement that doesn't run windows and keeps their recipies and email safe)
My sig sucks.
Good...
They should be worried about getting a real 3G cell network off the ground first.
Then we can do all those things with more flexibility than what is mentioned in that very short "article."
There's nowhere to put the golden spike!
Boingo already started something similar quite a while ago. It's not clear from the story if they will be partners with Boingo or competitors. Any ideas, anybody?
802.11, 11b and 11g are 2.4 GHz. 11a is 5 GHz.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
I normally play civ2/3 in the back seat of the car on long trips, but hey- as if I'm not wired enough I need wireless internet access too.
Hopefully pricing would be decent (if this does actually come) or at least you could buy it in a timeblock (let's see- I've got a road trip the 3rd week of August, and then book that time).
Across the WHOLE US? Or across major metro areas?
I've got some users that could really USE true border to border access (petroleum tank inspectors) but since live access= digital cellphone coverage, there's a BUNCH of the state that's unreachable via cellphone.
Meaning we've got to add a LOT of logic to the custom apps to handle dead zones.
Now, if coverage were limited to cities with more than 60 people (and could be, at $100 per basestation) that'd be a Very Good Thing.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
But it has to be done:
Never confuse volume with power.
It would be easier to cover rural areas than it currently is for cable or DSL. You just need to build a tower and put a repeater at the top. What's that going to cost, $20K. That's nothing compared to running cable to cover the same area one antenna could. I'm sure the cities are first on the list, but rural would be more feasible than it is now.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Most of the posts here seem to assume this means wireless connectivety everywhere. Such is *not* the case. The article states that the players in this network will put access points in airports and other public spaces and will not try to provide access to peoples homes.
In fact this doesn't seem to be so much a 'Wireless Network' as a bunch of access points connected to the Internet. Not what I was hoping for when I saw the subject line.
What I want is a nationwide variant of the Ricochet network. Anyone remember them? They used light-pole mounted units that acted as wireless routers, letting them provide access anywhere by routing the packets through the air to the closest wired router. It worked pretty damn well (if slow). I used it here in Seattle for a couple of years and being able to check my email while stuck in traffic alone made it worth the cost. The fact that I had Internet connectivety pretty much everywhere else was just gravy.
A similar scheme can work with 802.11 devices, given cheap hardware and proper software. Many groups are already working on this. Here in Seattle there is even a group trying to set up a non-profit community network this way -- http://www.seattlewireless.org
If such home-brewed networks were to spread across the country we could tie them together via the Internet, or even via leased lines between cities. Now that sounds like the kind of thing I would like to see! No way anyone could ever control that...
Jack William Bell
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
The article: The companies involved -- which also include AT&T Wireless Services, Verizon Communications, and Cingular Wireless -- would build access points in public places such as airports but would not try to supply access to people's homes, according to the report.
It's a bummer.
Can I bum a sig?
You're highly unlikely to get WiFi anywhere except in densely populated areas. You get the maximum bitrates only over short distances. This requires a base station every 100 meters (or 60 yards) max.
The cellular networks offer much better coverage, and something that people forget, higher mobility. WiFi doesn't function seamlessly over much more than walking speeds, if at all. A subscriber in a cellular network can do 120 kilometers (or 80 miles) an hour and maintain a connection.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
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Boingo (http://www.boingo.com/), if they have not already started service, will be starting service soon.
And unlike IBM and Intel, who are "thinking of a business model/plan", Boingo already has a plan in effect - They're either buying or partnering with smaller wireless ISPs, and also setting up franchise systems. "You set up the hardware, we'll get you the users and handle billing, we share the profits." It's basically the same technique used to build Earthlink into the national ISP it is now. Not surprising, considering that Boingo's founder Sky Dayton is the man who built Earthlink.
Toshiba is also entering the market soon with a turnkey $200 POP system - Same basic deal. A customer installs the system, Toshiba handles the billing. I'm not sure if it's designed to be nationalized easily, though. I got the impression it's more of the type of thing that your local coffee shop would install, and you'd only purchase access for that shop.
In addition, Boingo is allowing those who operate open APs (such as those in NYCWireless, etc.) to submit their APs into Boingo's AP database.
They're even taking it one step further: Supposedly their software can sniff APs. Wardriving goes corporate...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
What kind of recipes do your parents have that need a firewall to keep safe?
For any Tinfoil hat types out there worried about the NYT registration I will gladly summarise the "article" for you
From the New York Times:
Earlier this month a bunch of really important advertisers in our newspaper had a meeting. According to several people close to the talks, these companies have now invented a new wireless standard called "802.11" The big companies are very proud of their invention, calling it "the next really really big thing (tm)"
While they realize there are many compatitibility issues that need to be worked out, executives from all the major advertisers agree that by Q4 of 2009 they will be rolling out preliminary test programs in Bumfark, South Dakota and the 'Pendelton Hills' Starbucks in Pendelton Oregon. This test program will only allow for compatibility with 3 brands of cell phones and one PDA, but all of the companies suspect that they will be able to offer service to their propriatary hardware within several years of a sucessful test program.
When asked if the meeting attendees had ever heard of a grassroots open source movement around 802.11, the spokesperson said: "huh?"
Thank you, I'll be here all week....
.....
There are no plans for residential coverage.
So before you all start dancing like retards because you'll finally be able to get rid of evil Time Warner Cable, or whatever, let that sink in.
You're still fucked. (Please read next time, though.)
Thanks!
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Just think, put a web site in the trunk of a Porsche and whenever the MPAA or RIAA come to shut you down, take off down the road.
:)
Then you can watch yourself live on Worlds Wildest Police Chases via your wireless connection while serving up countless bootleg MP3s & DVDs
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Boingo is the ONLY company I've seen with 802.11b coverage in Central Jersey.
Like the IBM/Intel effort, the target is hotels and airports...
But even a few hotels (not just one) have APs in Bridgewater, NJ. Impressive. Very impressive.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
That's what I'm afraid of, soon manufacturers will start producing pager, cell phones, and laptops with no way to turn them off.
Personally, I like, no I revel in being disconnected on weekends and after hours. I turn off my cell. I turn of my pager. I work on my laptop as it was meant to be used, on my lap in a lounge chair on the back deck with a big ol' glass of lemonade.
At this point, I can still tell my boss "no, I didn't get your email, I didn't have internet access at the cafe." After Project Rainbow, I'll have to resort to "No, my laptop was off/ran out of battery". When they start making laptops with 24hr batteries and no power button, I'll have to tell my boss the truth- I DON'T WANT TO CHECK EMAIL ON WEEKENDS. IT'S MY TIME, LEAVE ME ALONE!
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
802.11 networks are springing up for free, from Maine to Seattle. Well, free as a few hundred bucks per node.
So, inevitably, someone's figuring out how to make us pay 50-100 bucks a month for something we could have for free.
Q: will this wonderful pay network interfere with the free radio nets?
It makes me rather sad. I was hoping an alternative internet would be born in the airwaves without busybodies charging for it and guvmint trying to control it.
Can't we have anything that big business players and government will keep their damned hands off?
(Guy out in a field with a laptop, surfing /.)
Can you see me trolling now? Good!
(same guy on the subway in NY)
Can you see me trolling now? Good!
(same guy at the beach in CA)
Can you see me trolling now? Good!
Yeah, you get the picture...
soon manufacturers will start producing pager, cell phones, and laptops with no way to turn them off
:-)
If someone does, be sure to let us know. In my cell phone the batteries have an infuriating habit of running dry in a couple of days.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Pringles is experiancing a sudden upsurge in orders.
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Weirdly enough, I JUST ran across this item.
I know that story is about ELF radiation, HOWEVER, there have been conclusive studies which demonstrate that it's not high frequency which affects the body so much as it is low frequency, and pulse and amplitude modulation of high frequency carriers which cause the negative effects biochemists and behavioralists complain of.
In non-iodizing power levels and at the right frequencies, cancer cells speed up their rate of division by as much as 100 times. Sorry. No links, but if I'm around in the next hour or so and people are interested, I'll key in some quotes from Robert O. Becker's book, "Cross Currents."
The reason engineers and physicists have such a problem accepting that EM is dangerous is that they can't find any mechanical way for EM to cause any kind of effect on cells other than heating and ionization, neither of which are the causative agents.
Well. . .
Guess what? There IS a simple and accepted system by which cells are easily affected by EM. I recommend that book I linked to. It's only $20 and it's very well written by a respected non-quack. Give it a look if you think of yourself as well-informed.
Anybody who still does as they're told by the big corporate media manipulation, (i.e., believes there is no danger in EM radiation), should also probably take up smoking, because as you have surely heard from similar big-money interests, there's no danger in that, either.
-Fantastic Lad
Oh crap, new article. Must post!!! No need to drive, I can type and drive at the same .... (CRASH)..
Tibbon
tibbon.com
The interesting part of the story in the NYT was that these jokers specifically said that they wouldn't be delivering services to neighborhoods. That's because they have their terrible, overpriced, underserviced cable services there already and wouldn't want to compete with themselves. The jerks.
I'll have to remember to use the metric system whenever figuring distance for a wireless network since that gives it more range...
:-)
One more example of us stupid Europeans not comphrehending the imperial system (or whatever you call it in the States).
I stand corrected.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
"We work hard, and we play hard!"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
In Australia, the general conclusion is that wafer cans are the best, as well as having the tastiest byproducts :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)