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IBM, AT&T and Intel Plan National Wireless ISP
dailywireless writes "Cometa Networks (formerly The Rainbow Project), a joint venture by IBM, Intel and AT&T, plans to merge Wi-Fi and cellular networks. 'Cometa's vision and plan for this is to offer a single sign-on, single authentication, seamless-roaming nationwide network,' said Michael Mass, vice president of marketing for the Communications Sector at IBM. 802 Plant reports 'AT&T will provide the network infrastructure and management, IBM the wireless installation and back-office system, and Intel the Banias processor.
The company plans to have ubiquitous coverage - no further away than 5 minutes walk in an urban area or 5 minutes drive in a rural area - by 2004. which will require the deployment of more than 20,000 hotspot access sites across the U.S.' What fate awaits "free" networks like NYC Wireless, Seattle Wireless or Portland's PersonalTelco?
Will AT&T use CoMeta's blanket coverage, with 20,000 "hotspots", to crush the "free" rebellion like a bug?"
You know if everybody makes a single signon technology, nobody will have a single signon...
Okay, time for a PhD EE + MD to tell us that having gigs of porn zipping through our brains every second won't cause any damage.
well nothing is going to beat free stuff. 20,000 access points is not going to make any difference just like 20,000 copies of window cant stop free OS.
This is terrifying. It's an obvious attempt at a communications monopoly- they already have all the suppliers planned out.
The problems with such are obvious. If this is allowed to occur, it would be one company controlling it all as it is what is most availible. Start with low rates to kill the competition, then use the almost-monopoly position to kick the price tag way up.
Wait, that sounds like M$.
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
For service providers, it will mean the ability to offer wireless services to their customers without having to invest in the wireless infrastructure themselves." I don't know. I'm already unhappy with my cable provider, with no other choice available. Do I really think that they could handle this reliably? I doubt it!
Whenever you add another layer of bueracracy, you're just going to get help desks saying "It's not our fault, it's 3i's fault, and 3i saying it's Comcast's fault".
Of course, I could see both of them saying it's Microsoft's fault, please reboot.
Where is this going to end? Are cellular companies going to offer phone service using VoIP over 802.11, complete with roaming via IP roaming?
I think whenever spectrum like that used for 802.11b/a is assigned, the FCC should prohibit people from selling services based on it--users that sell services should buy their own spectrum. Otherwise, such companies will just take over what was supposed to be a public resource. It's kind of like allowing businesses to just take over parts of the public park or street. Such restrictions wouldn't mean you can't use it for business purposes: you can still buy the equipment and use it internally, and you can still give service away to your friends.
There's nothing more scary to me than dealing with companies that aren't renowned for their technology flexibility (despite the point that AT&T owns the UNIX brand).
I'm worried that this idea may generate standards that support the larger (though not necessarily better) Microsoft technologies than others. Not everyone wants to run Windows to interface to a wireless network. If you're running a UNIX, your operating system will likely have stronger security that the proposed technologies that some networks expect your OS to support, such as encryption keys.
Don't get me wrong. I support the idea. However, it's the implementation that scares me.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I just got mail from a friend in Taiwan who says:
"you know, everyone has a cell phone here, it is so nice to use those GSM phone compare to US, you can always switch to a different phone company by plug in a different smart card on the phone"
Maybe the US doesn't need a single giant wireless monopoly?
My house! I'll only charge them $500.00 a month plus unlimited access.
'Intellectual Properties' are uncontrollable in the wild. To base an economy on them is just stupid.
Blah blah corporate rule take over the world why isn't everything free blah blah evil empire conspiracy.
Nonsense.
Who else do you know with a mobile wifi hotspot van ?
The larger issue as I see it is that here's yet another large corporation guzzling up RF spectrum and leaving nothing for anyone else.
AT&T has a penchant for loading spectrum auctions with seemingly small outfits that they support, and when one of them wins spectrum it (surprise!) ends up in the hands of AT&T.
If the FCC were truly concerned about competition in the broadband market, they'd carve off two or three UHF television channels and start printing licenses for their use by small companies wanting to be WISPs. These channels would be expressly off-limits to incumbent telcos and wireless outfits.
Picking something between 500 mHz and 1 gHz will allow the users to have a reasonable chance of overcoming losses due to foliage and weather. Existing FHSS (frequency hopping spread spectrum) technology can be used, and speeds well over 500 kbs are easily attainable, yet the range is upwards of 5 miles.
Of course, that'll never happen as small businesses are completely unable to swing the required $70,000 campaign donation to those legislators sitting on the FCC's appropriations committee.
Disgraceful, really.
My home 802.11b network is affected by my new 2.4 GHz cordless phone - if I use the phone next to my laptop (with an Orinoco card), the laptop doesn't communicate until the phone is turned off.
That's the problem with an unlicensed band - you can't complain when you get interference from other users.
I just thought of another problem. The 2.4GHz band used by 802.11b overlaps a ham radio band, and the ham radio users are licensed for their band. The hams might get pissy. A legal ham radio transmitter could pretty well wipe out a significant area's wireless comms.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
--once again the red zones are being ignored. Take away whether or not this conglomerate bid for nation wide wireless is a good idea in general, the bottom line is ONCE AGAIN technology is not being planned to be deployed over vast areas of 'the nation". Last I knew "the nation" was the sum total of everywhere, not "just" the core urban areas that already have bunches of broadband options compared to 90% of the rest of the nation.
Enoughs enough, we managed to get electric wires to homes all over, then we got copper telephone wires, next step is fiber optics everywhere or cable. Wireless with competing products and frequencies and etc, swell, but for true nation wide broadband (commercial that is) we just need to put hardwires every place electric lines go.
To answer in advance who should do it? That's easy, the government MANDATES that the old monopolies who made billions and billions and billions of dollars over the generations "do it", they take some of that profit and put it back.That's ATT, the baby bells and the off shoots now. The right of ways already exist, the telephone poles already exist. They either add on to what's there or replace the twisted pair, one or the other or both. I just don't want to hear they don't have the money. I remember one time I was installing modular office walls in an ATT building north metro atlanta, an entire building, a big one, that was being upgraded then sat EMPTY unused. I even asked, "why are we here, why is this company doing this, why did they build this building and do all this work to not use it?" Obvious millions of bucks being spent. I asked our ATT "tour guide" who was there to oversee us sub contractor workers. No rational answer, the ATT dude didn't know or wouldn't say. Nuts. Cable monopolies granted in city after city after city across the US, but they aren't required to deliver cable everywhere in those cities, just wherever they felt like it. Nuts. Same companies way back then claimed you woukld pay for cable and be commercial-free. Nuts.
I agree with the other poster, people need ad-hoc personal wireless and mesh networks and by pass these monopolies, by pass the government, by pass echelon and carnivore and whatever other voodoo censorship command and control nonsense is coming down the pike, by pass the commercial offerings. You can smell what's coming, an internet totally pay-per view for every byte with complex "packages" and pricing scams like what has happened with cell phones and cable TV. Maybe that would work, I don't know, but something has to be done to get broadband all over, not just core concentrated dense metro areas.
The band isn't regulated, so you can do what you want. They have to accept interference from your 2.4Ghz devices.. soo.. read between the lines if you're spiteful.
If widespread 802.11 is what it takes to get reliable, IP-based wireless everywhere, then so be it. The power is in the hands of consumers now to do it themselves.. and yes, I've been to some wireless presentations where industry experts have said 802.11 based cell phones are not out of the realm of possibility,expected and planned for. The only reason they don't exist now is the manufacturers don't want to piss off the people who got hosed by the joke that is 3G.
Which just opens up an opportunity for someone else.
..don't panic
802.11 a/b band is allocated for *consumer* use. If this is how consumers want the frequency to be used, so be it. I, for one, can see a large demand for nationwide broadband, especially wireless. At the moment, broadband users can't even dial up to their ISP over the phone from the road, much less get broadband access to their account from a moving vehicle or a foreign city.
/. hopefuls out there, maybe this will serve as a good case-in-point to prove to the FCC that companies don't have to *own* frequencies to be able to do business on them. If we can convince them of this, it could still be possible to fix some of the FCC's biggest mistakes :)
It just boils down to the fact that consumers will have to vote with their dollars to say how they want this (their) bandwidth to be used.
And, for all the
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
An article that someone is going to build what will probably be a really useful wireless network on a scale that will actually make it useful and all that half the posters on here can do is whine that it won't be free. Well of course it won't be. There is no such thing as free wireless internet access. Only access that somebody else is paying for. Either because they feel generous, or because they hope you'll spend your money on something else. Will all the posters whining about this please go and build this free network that they are talking about. I expect it to be a great sucess once it's build and working.
Sig is taking a break!
IBM has said they want to turn computing into a utility (kind of like how the the weather simulations were conducted in "permutation city" :) so having a nation-wide wireless network (alongside its global services division) seems like just another step down the road... to world domination, j/k!
:) as well as take steps to protect personal and community networks already existing.
ironically tho, the very idea of mimicking a utility would appear to make government (federal, state or municipal) more suited to its delivery -- like how the road and highway system is administered in the US or perhaps a pseudo-public venture like the US postal service, which still leaves room for private competition.
the altruistically anarchic model for wireless network expansion is ideal and i hope it continues! but it's naive to think private entities would be content to provide equipment (as literally shareware) for an emerging wireless network and not seek to run (and monetize) them.
local, state or federal government i think would be wise to take the initiative and make sure providing computing utility does not become an entirely private venture (they might even contract with cometa
First, 802.11b has some problems with security. That's number one. Second, there are some real problems with what they are going to have to do to make it work. If they make no changes to hardware, they are just begging to be hacked. My guess is they won't run encryption and they will have some sort of webpage that automagically loads when you hit the AP asking for a web page (this is what Wayport does). Second, free AP's setup by home users and others are all over the place and already occupying a channel (probably channel 6 as that's a common default). There is not enough channels to make this work on 802.11b. It will almost have to be a bastardized version of it or maybe 802.11g (running in 5 GHz). In either of these, because of the frequencies used, the range will suck unless you exceed the power limit set by the standard. I just don't see this being used as cell phones are used today. It would be nice and I SURE AS HELL WOULD PAY for it because I love wireless. Being able to browse on my PDA on the bus or train would be wonderful. Is it feasible? Well, if you have as deep of pockets as AT&T the answer would be maybe but my answer would be no.
Gorkman
IANALBIPOOTV
It seems to me that these companies might be wandinging into a bit of a legal gray area by trying to offer pay services based on spectrum that has been set aside for free public use. I can't imagine the FCC allowing Clear Channel to throw up a stick and start broadcasting a commercial signal below the 92 MHz mark on your FM dial.
Of course, if the portion of the spectrum used by 802.11 a/b isn't specifically stamped "Non-Commercial Use Only", then I don't see how AT&T et al. can be stopped.
I guess the major question is: "Does the fact that the public has the right to use a given resource for free preclude individuals/corporations from packaging and selling that resource?" I would say as long as Ma Bell's nationwide WiFi network doesn't keep you from using a free WiFi network, then AT&T's in the clear.
Now, will people want to pay for something they could get for free? Of course they would. How else has Micro$oft stayed in business for so long?
True Windows hasn't succeeded in crushing Linx, but the "bandwidth" of pcs is unlimited. If I buy a new computer and put Linux on it it doesn't directly effect the neighboring systems.
WiFi is different. There you have a limited amount of bandwidth that is availible and inevitably debates will arise over who can have it. The First Come First Served argument probably won't cut it unless you can afford the same quality legal teams as IBM, Intel, and AT&T.
Take the case of Starbucks vs. Oregon's Personal Telco reported here. In that cose both sides are using open spectrum but Starbucks is claiming some sort of "inalienable right" to own the frequency since it is the same frequency that they use in any other city. Personal Telco is a volunteer project so they can hardly afford the lawyers to fight this one off.
And, even if the established free projects don't get shut down the revolution may still be stopped. Those free projects aren't ubiquitous. If Starbucks, AT&T and the rest overload the spectrum in other areas (such as rural areas) then there will be no room for new groups to start up.
I'm not arguing that AT&T has this in mind or that they have "no right" to step in and provide this service. But, I do believe that when push comes to shove (I'm certain that it will) and lawyers get involved, then the issue will be decided on the decidedly skewed playing field of the courts, in front of the FCC and in Congress where AT&T's deep pockets will hold sway.