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BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the bits-and-bytes-through-the-wild-blue-yonder dept.

ydeepakjois writes "BusinessWeek is running a series of articles on the potential of wireless high-speed access, the Wi-Fi industry and the challenges faced by it. There is also an interesting bit about a business model for wireless carriers."

15 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. This is going to be a joyous thing by thedbp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When Centrinos are commonplace and WiFi hotspots are provided and subsidized by Intel and the like around the country, those lucky bastards who bought iBooks and PowerBooks w/ AirPort YEARS ago will have a nice little windfall of free bandwidth as they roam around the landscape.

    Being ahead of the curve has always been good for Apple users - sometimes you find that the industry sort of settles around what you've been doing/using for years ... for instance, Macs have had built-in ethernet since 1991, and the first true a/v models that features composite and s-video input and output w/a second DSP chip specifically for the heavy a/v lifting, debuted in 1993.

    I feel like a Boy Scout w/ my Mac - always prepared. And not in the hot entree type of prepared - I mean the "ready for anything" type of prepared.

    1. Re:This is going to be a joyous thing by benjiboo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Battery life on laptops needs to improve before wireless access is truly a useful thing. You couldn't anticipate being able to pick up a mail or video conference with such a big possibiliy of running out of juice. This is especially important as it's mainly useful to business users - even the most hardcore geek can do without the web for a few hours whilst traveliing etc.

      --
      Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
    2. Re:This is going to be a joyous thing by Surak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At the risk of sounding somewhat like the Mac fanboy the parent poster is (as I am not a Mac fanboy myself), I'll point out that iBooks are supposed to get something like 5 hours of battery life in real-life use. Centrinos are supposed to get 5-7, I'm guessing 4-5 in real-life use. Personally I'd like to see notebooks that can do 8-10 hours -- IOW, a full day's work.

      I personally don't see anyway for battery life to improve unless people are willing to compromise on performance and whizbang features. Battery capacity itself is as perfected as it's going to get...the key is to cut down consumption. But everytime someone figures out how to cut consumption on one component, the laptop mfrs stuff more features in rather than focusing on a laptop that has the longest possible battery life.

      Unfortunately, too many people will buy laptop "X" with 17" display, DVD+R+RW/CD/R/RW combo superdrive, ultrawhizzy 300 GB hard drive, with the latest and greatest ultrawhizzy superfast processor and 1.5 hours of battery life rather than laptop "Y" which only has a 13.1" or 14" display, a relatively slow-clocked processor, with a somewhat slow, but powersaving hard drive, no removable storage and 7 hours of battery life.

      That's because they've bought into the marketing hype and have forgotten that the number 1 advantage of a laptop is to be able to work anywhere, anytime. Laptops don't NEED to be desktop replacements, they should be thought of as desktop complements, rather than replacements.

      --
      My journal has hot /. gossip.
  2. What about the Security by Montgomery+Burns+III · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I have read several of the recent BW articles lauding the beaty and wonder of WI-FI. I was apalled at the lack of concern about the security issues associated with wireless communications.
    While it is great to talk about the productivity gains of the tools, we dare not ignore the threats against:

    Confidentiality
    Integrity
    Availability.
    --

    'ta
    1. Re:What about the Security by samhalliday · · Score: 3, Insightful
      the security issues are the same as they are with a hard line connection on a local network... regards snooping and so forth. if you want a secure connection, you dont use telnet, and you dont trust unknown keys in ssh/ssl. if you want your actions recorded for all to see, better use telnet :-/

      'nuff said.

  3. this is a nice idea... by sickboy_macosX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But it would be nice if we could see wifi hotspots in other smaller cities like Seattle Wireless has set up in their town. I think if ISP's could lower the equipment costs for their WI-FI equipment down from 600 dollars to about 100, or 200 more people would catch on. That and someone needs to come up with a way for the Wireless Providers to be able to shoot over the hilly and rocky mountains like we have in Southeast Idaho. And if we could fix the speed barrier, get the bottle neck up from 11mbps to 54 or even higher, that would rock!

    --
    --- /* In Soviet Russia, the Mac OS X kernel panics you! */
  4. What about free-as-in-beer by pork_spies · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We really have a chance to make this wave of the 'net' very different from the previous round - and that means taking control and offering an alternative vision (see Consume).
    Who care about what Business Week says? It's about as interesting as 3G phones from their end - ie not at all interesting, just another way to part us from our money. Yes, let's all buy wireless cards, but learn the lesson of P2P and make them available to all.

  5. business travelers... by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this is my biggest problem w/Wi-Fi "hot-spots". There has to be more people than just "business travelers" that want wireless Internet connections...

    This is NOT a good business model people. I do NOT want to have to goto the local airport or downtown coffee shop (not my type of place) in order to get connected while I am out of my house.

    I want connections EVERYWHERE and ANYWHERE. I want to goto the local bar, sit down w/my NTN Playmaker, my Budweiser, and my 12 Wild Wings, watching Football, and hop on the net to surf, AIM, ssh, etc.

    I am NOT a business traveler. I will probably never be one.

    Good business models include a LARGE cross-section.

  6. Why is this so hard to understand? by grumpygrodyguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is also an interesting bit about a business model for wireless carriers.

    There is no business model for wireless, that's why it's so great!

    It's 100% commodity based. Companies build commodity products, and the consumer purchases them to become part of the ISP. Mesh routers, 802X nodes, etc are all self-sufficient "black boxes" purchased by users for users.

    The last thing we need is another middle-man sending us a bill for something that's free!

    --
    The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
  7. Interference by Tweakmeister · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think you'll find WiFi slowly fazed out for different technologies, namely ones that are...proprietary.

    Interference and crowding may prove to become too much of an issue as everyone hops on the bandwagon.

    This being said, WiFi is a great technology to pave the way in wireless.

    --

    Colossians 2:8

  8. Also see: E-week by Montgomery+Burns+III · · Score: 3, Informative

    A good and related article There are concerns deserving attention here.
    --

    'ta
  9. Wi-Fi.. great for what it is by Fnkmaster · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I mean, it's great that Wi-Fi hardware is so cheap and commoditized and everything, but what people keep seem to be missing is that A) the cheap commodity hardware is designed for small local area coverage, which is fabulous for business LANs and easy home networking, but bad for a general mobile wireless service B) hotspot-only coverage just doesn't provide a strong enough value proposition C) the purely commoditized nature of the hardware makes for a zero barriers to entry business. Anybody can build a network of hotspots on one payment system. But even if everybody used the same payment system, there would certainly be some value from it, but not at such a striking level that it is likely to happen. D) The only businesses that really have a striking imperative to need hotspots there are coffee shops, hotels and other places that make a living off of having people linger. McDonalds wireless - bad idea (I know they are experimenting with it), they want to get you in and out as soon as possible.


    The fact is, 3G wireless networks are going to win out in the long run. Being able to open your laptop in the coffee shop and surf the web is great, but the bigger "wireless" market is vehicular embedded communications devices, fully connected PDAs, email-on-the-go, web browsing from where-ever you want. And no, futzing with my fucking cellphone keypad to send a stupid SMS message just doesn't count, I want it all on my Palm Pilot/Windows CE device, I want it seemless, I want it universal, I want it affordable.

    1. Re:Wi-Fi.. great for what it is by Locutus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's it guys, WiFi isn't going to enable the PDA and handheld. It's too power hungry and please don't try to tell me you can use WiFi on your existing handheld just fine. 1 hour of use and then back to the charger is NOT useful and only allows snake oil salesmen like Bill Gates to do demos. It's not usable in the business market or at home IMHO.

      Bluetooth has alot of the answers. It enables PDAs, handhelds, laptops, etc to have internet connectivity on the road via Bluetooth -> mobile phone connections. Using a Bluetooth WAP, you can get the connectivity at the office or home.

      In a class 2( 10meter ) configuration, you'll typically get 4x longer runtime than WiFi. Security becomes less of a problem because it's security-by-proximity( you can see who's trying to break in ). Heck, you want a secure meeting with wireless connectivity? Put a Class 3( 1-3meter) WAP in the middle of the meeting table.

      IMHO, WiFi should be the secondary wireless system and Bluetooth the primary one.

      LoB

      --
      "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  10. Easy: VPN by div_2n · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only real stop gap solution at this point is to have a VPN server on the other side of the wireless connection. That way, your packets can be sniffed all day and would be crackers have to deal with breaking VPN crypto.

    I suspect that in the end, that will be the way to go regardless of new advancements in WEP that may or may not come about.

    The bottom line is that somewhere, the day will have to be encrypted in some way because it is open in the air for anyone to grab. If you put the burden of the horsepower required to encrypt/decrypt on your WAP, then your ability to serve large numbers of clients diminishes.

    In other words, leave the WAP duties up to the WAP and leave the encryption duties up to a VPN server. No changes to current technologies required.

  11. Personal Telco Wireless Project in Portland, OR by mrs+clear+plastic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's interesting to notice that none of the articles mentions anything about the Personal Telco wireless project in Portland, Oregon. This is a grass roots effort to provide limited free access to wireless
    internet in parts of Portland, Oregon.

    I also know that there are similar efforts going
    on in other cities.

    I also did not notice (it could be there as I only
    skimmed the articles) anything about the war-chalking that goes on in some areas to identify places where one can get a wireless session.

    Mark

    --
    Cleara