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Sluggish WiFi Connections Hurt Everyone
MindNumbingOblivion writes "Wireless technology has revolutionized access to local area networks when one can't always be close to an ethernet jack. But a recent research paper from the French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique tells how one slow user accessing a hot point can hurt the whole group. Apparently the very nature of CSMA/CD guarantees such anomalies. Here's the story, and here's the release from CNRS (in French)."
If your in a public location using a hotspot the only transfers your most likely going to be doing are to/from the internet, not to/from your 1337 mp3 s3v3r box. Chances are the hot spots inet connection is ~1mbps anyway.
This is nothing new. This sort of flaw is inherent in CSMA/CD, the WiFi problem is just another example of it. Before CSMA/CD was even rolled out people knew about this situation. The pros just outweigh the cons, for what this network design philosophy is used for.
WiFi's already easy to DOS... just put a bunch of 2.4 GHz spread-spectrim phones in the neighborhood and start yakking...
If people are going to Starbucks they must like it, they don't need your permission and they are perfectly capable of making up their own minds. Who are you to tell others what kind of coffee they should drink?
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.