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Will Cellular Swamp WiFi?
hhutkin writes "Sure, Wi-Fi is great for my home network. But what else can it do? After reading this article, I'm convinced that cellular is becoming more ubiquitous with wireless networking than wi-fi will ever be. Just look at all the devices that are coming on the market using cellular technology. I can send email and pics, browse the web, plus listen to MP3s all on one cellular device. It makes the notion of a hotspot almost meaningless." But 802.11x is high-bandwidth, and often unmetered ...
But cellular == the phone company, which usually translates into expensive metering and obnoxious, slow telco beuracracy.
Telecoms bankrupted themselves to pay the gov't billions for the 3G spectrum, don't expect them to give it away for free or cheap.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
It all comes down to whether you'd rather pay 50c a minute to do it *right now* or wait a while and do it back at the office, or at starbucks or wherever. Yeah, if the cell companies start offering data traffic for free, you'd be an idiot not to subscribe, but I don't see it being free or even reasonably cheap anytime soon.
WiFi is meant to cover a small area, like a house or an office, to link back to local resources. Celluar networks have nothing useful on them other than their connection back to the outside world.
Does anybody sane have a T3 that both starts and ends in their basement? There's no point, 100BaseT wires provide faster bandwidth on a cheaper wire in small-area situations. But you can't ask 100BaseT to go accross town, and that's what the T3 is useful for.
WiFi is for LAN use, cellular is for WAN use. Both have a place, and neither can fully replace the other.
This is true, but what is also true is that 3G (4G, etc.) will _never_ be a threat to WiFi. I can't set up a 3G hot spot wherever I want. They are two completely different technologies suited for two completely different purposes.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I founded two of the three wireless providers operating in the metro Omaha area (#53 in terms of market size) and I can assure you that cellular is going to stomp balls on unlicensed wireless services.
... its not an *if*, its a 'how soon'.
... yet ... but I am aware of several additional point to multipoint installs in that band that are going to compete with the service I built last year. The UNI-I band noise floor is going to reach the same ridiculous levels we see in ISM - it is just a matter of time.
... and with the instability of ISM obviously going to happen in UNI-I no one with the money to drive that sort of activitry is going to be silly enough to get involved.
... which they can already do for the tougher mobile market and they can not bury themselves in stupid anti-customer policies like the cable modem industry. People are going to pay for a network attachmen they can *use*, not a service for downloading Hello, Kitty skins for their cell phones.
What we've seen in the last six weeks in the ISM band here in Omaha is an indication of the future of the whole industry.
Someone, somewhere, which we can't locate, has put up something in the ISM band we can't identify which produces an observed signal strength at a range of ten plus miles that is equal to the signal strength observed *six feet* from a multipoint sector antenna amped to the legal maximum. This has been the final blow for service coming from the second highest location in the city. Crowding and poor practice on the highest point make it equally precarious. Unless you *own* the rights to the ISM band on the structure you're using as a central site, you *will* get screwed
The situation in the UNI-I band isn't that grim
You have to understand the economics of the thing to know why it isn't going to work - even if you don't have technical problems like we're seeing here the only place ISM band wireless is going to succeed is in rural areas.
Customers view wireless as a competitor to DSL and cable and that is a loser's game - if you aren't selling some additional service on your circuit you're pissing away money at the $40/mo mark. The money spot is above a T1 and below a DS3
All that needs to happen for G3 to succeed is for them to provide ISDN like speed to fixed installs
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo