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Europe Vs. North America in WiFi growth.
r.future writes " InfoSync World and netstumbler.com have posted an interesting story that speculates about the financial growth of WiFi networks In Europe anD North America from 2003-2008. The story states: 'Insight Research's analysis of the WiFi industry, WiFi in North America and Europe: Telecommunications' Future 2003-2008, suggests that wireless LAN technology - increasingly popping up in public spaces such as airports and cafes, in private residences, and in businesses - will grow faster in Europe than North America. Worldwide WiFi revenues are expected to grow from $7 billion USD in 2003 to over $44 billion USD by 2008, at a compounded annual rate of 44 percent.'"
Certainly in Belgium, the main ISP (ironically called "Skynet") is pushing wireless ADSL routers. It makes sense: home internet users are already so down on security that it's hard to imagine wireless making any difference.
But for public access? Way too expensive, for one, and secondly there are really few people who trot around with their laptops, with the exception of air travellers, where wifi is a definite niche product with a future.
There have been projects to create free acess wifi networks around European cities but these need a level of collaboration which Europeans don't seem able to give.
Finally, Europe is _so_ wired. Why go wireless? For instance, in Brussels, there must be several hundred cybershops which offer internet at 1 Euro per hour.
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depends on what "free" means for you. i've been driving through my city (cologne, germany) last week with my notebook and i discovered lots and lots of private wlans. more than 30 access points in just a few minutes. most of them (about 85%) were totally unprotected and gave direct access to the internet and even to their windows shares... :-)
ok it might not be legal to use those, but you can get wireless internet access virtually everywhere in town.
I think that's more to do with population than any real social tendencies. The US is a highly populated area, perhaps the 4th largest country in the world. Europe with a smaller population HAS more open space, which belies the installation of large hard wired network: witness the lower takeup of cable services in europe. Wireless networks just make sense in that situation alot of the time
You've got odd ideas about the amount of open space in the USA. I found some stats here:
Europe's overall population density is 115 people per square km (and that number is pulled *right* down by sparsely populated areas such as Iceland), compared the USA's density of 29 people per square km.
Europe just doesn't do wide open spaces like the US does. As a Briton who's travelled a fair amount in mainland Europe, and whos driven across the USA twice (take the hi-line across Montana then tell me the USA is densely populated), those figures tally pretty well with my expectations.
At this early stage, however, nobody expects WiFi in the back of beyond. Hotspots in towns is where it's going to happen. Perhaps this article is using the wrong measurement. Rather than raw investment figures, or investment per square km, they should be measuring investment per unit of population.
The danger of this, of course, is the same thing as what's happening with broadband. British Telecom brags that 90% of the population has a DSL enabled exchange. Unfortunately those 90% of the population live on 10% of the land: i.e. reaching the remaining 10% of the population is going to be a hell of a job. (stats in last paragraph dredged from memory, approximate, illustrative only).
Basically almost everywhere in the US has a massive investment in landlines while many areas of the second and third world (France, Germany, China, etc.) have yet to develop nationwide telecommunications networks.
Huh? You do not seriously believe yourself what you just wrote, right? As far as I know, most western European countries have a very good land line network, and I can speak here from first hand experience in Germany.
Actually, when digital wireless phone networks were introduced in Germany 1991/92 (shortly after unification), there was a big difference between east and west Germany, since the east German network was by far not as developed as the west German. AFAIK, in the old GDR people had to wait for years to get a phone at home, and it took Deutsche Telekom until about 1995 to rebuild a new all-digital fixed line network in the East. So in the beginning of the wirless digital area, there probably was some incentive in the East to go with a wireless phone (though they were quite expensive at that time) instead of waiting for a couple of months for a fixed line one, but these (rather special) circumstances are long gone. I surely don't believe that wired infrastructure in Germany is by any means worse than in the US.
You really need to tell your findings to the CIA.
s /gm.html#Comm):
From the CIA World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
general assessment: Germany has one of the world's most technologically advanced telecommunications systems; as a result of intensive capital expenditures since reunification, the formerly backward system of the eastern part of the country, dating back to World War II, has been modernized and integrated with that of the western part domestic: Germany is served by an extensive system of automatic telephone exchanges connected by modern networks of fiber-optic cable, coaxial cable, microwave radio relay, and a domestic satellite system; cellular telephone service is widely available, expanding rapidly, and includes roaming service to many foreign countries international: Germany's international service is excellent worldwide, consisting of extensive land and undersea cable facilities as well as earth stations in the INMARSAT, INTELSAT, EUTELSAT, and INTERSPUTNIK satellite systems (2001)
Finally, stop picking on "neo-Cons"
I have no problem with the neo-Cons. What I do have a real big problem with is the aggressive way they to try to completely distort, dismiss or destroy any person/organisation that doesn't agree with them. That is extremely unhealthy from my point of view.
Do you know, for instance, that Ashcroft is currently trying to use ancient and irrelevant laws to destroy Greenpeace in the USA? Now, that kind of thing I really object to, and I will continue to "pick on" the neo-Cons whilst the continue to behave in such a manner.
there are a few good reasons for the faster growth rate in europe. first of all europe's countrys are smaller, and so a single provider can cover a whole country's hotspots without going bancrupt because of hardware costs. here in austria the largest cellular carrier is planing to launch WLAN. as far as i know they are using the antennas they use for gsm transmission also as wlan hotspots. this makes sense especially in cities where the antenna density is quite high. in my opinion customers will prefer that they receive access from a single provider instead of having to make a subscription in every major city. since coverage of all american city's by a single provider is almost not feasible the people will be more sceptical about the WLAN.
so, to sum it up: Europe's average small country size is the main reason for the faster spreading of WiFi technology
".Sig Stealer" was here
Comparing apples to oranges. Mandating that one drives on one side of the road has nothing to do with the topic of mandating the use of one type of technology. If people could drive however they wanted, the roadways (and sidewalks!) would be a wholesale slaughter. How many people die because they use different types of cell phone tech? (ok, despite the cheapo exploding hand grenade type phones popping up which is more of a quality control issue).
Voltage one is good though, however is it a government mandated voltage? Or just industry standard (ie, de facto as opposed to de jure)?
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis hebes
you should go to consume.net and check by postcode to see all free as in beer wireless broadband points in the area. It is the uk national free wireless network set up by volunteers... just contact the people who are operating the nearest node to where you are staying and check that they have open access or get the keys/info from them.
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Voltage one is good though, however is it a government mandated voltage? Or just industry standard ;). But I didn't find a link conforming this assumption.
I don't know, but until 15 years ago countries in the EU (then EC) still had slightly different voltages (e.g. Germany 220V, UK 240V), in the last 15 years the EU was gradually moving to a common standarf of 230V. And I would be quite suprised if this wouldn't have happened in compliance with some EU law
I feel I should reply to this as there are a few inaccuracies here:
GSM wasn't "mandated". In summary most of Western Europe agreed that there should be a single, interoperable standard to replace the early analogue phone networks (i.e. "2G" replacing "1G"). The hardware and software vendors built their own common reference and then it was put out into a single standard. This is no different to everyone agreeing to Internet Protocol rather than a soup of protocols and interconnects. Remember that wasn't a free market choice either. Every vendor licences from the GSM group so it isn't "open" in the more modern sense but if you are a telco the licences are freely available for low fees.
Remember in Europe there is a much greater sense that we, the voters, own the commons (such as radio spectrum or fishing rights) so that corporations have to be good citizens or we'll withdraw their franchise (i.e. the citizens will regulate them out of existence). We are often much more bemused by the adherence to free market principles that don't make sense - such as the Californian Electricity Regulation (it is not de-regulation, just a different regime) that is based almost exactly on the UK's original privatisation model. Note that the UK changed the model rapidly once we realised the problems inherent in the risks and rewards of such a setup - but California ignored the issues until recently. Your politicians really don't act in your interests!
You are right, CDMA is better - but that's simply due to the relative ages of the designs. So much more is known now that CDMA looks poor compared to the much-later 3G designs - and I'm sure that future schemes will produce even better connectivity.
Which needless restrictions are you mentioning? Such as the interoperability requirements, transparent interconnection and billing? Number portability (you've finally caught up with that only 20 years later...:-)
There are several, competing reasons why the US falls behind at technologies it should be leading the world in... (especially when you consider the discrepancies in R&D spends).
The US regulatory regime hinders mobile uptake. Mobiles aren't easily identifiable as such - most GSM-using countries push their phones onto a separate area code for ease-of-identification (e.g. UK has 01... for all landline area codes and 07... for all cellular). "Caller-Pays" isn't evenly implemented in the US - so not only do you not know if you are calling a mobile, you aren't sure if you'll pay to receive calls too! This principle makes phone service in many countries much more transparent - and hence more likely to be used. I know if I call a landline I'll pay 3-7 cents and a mobile will cost 20-50 U.S. cents per minute, but to receive I'll pay nothing - ever. As a mobile user that makes me much more likely to leave the phone on compared to my American friends. In every GSM country all providers must interoperate with each other. This is true for voice in the US, but not for all the extras such as SMS texting. Please note that this is responsible for up to 50% of the profits of GSM providers! Also, one number finds me anywhere in the world. No other system offers that.
The proliferation of wireless technologies has stopped you buying one phone and using it with any provider - increasing your costs.
It has also stopped you from having an open market in more modern phones - only "approved" phones are available from your telco - so they maximise profits by providing you with older-generation phones with crappy features for high prices - hence the US/rest-of-world split when it comes to deciding that Bluetooth is dead. We see the benefits with our newer generation handsets, but you struggle to get a limited range. Try Nokia.co.uk and see the number of phones you can buy!
Vendor lock-in has really reduced your choice and increased your prices. It's only a free market for the Telco - certainly not you.
Finally, you are comparing apples to oranges.
Pimping my Karma Whore since 1847.
C'mon! There's this "research" paper claiming some figures for WiFi spending in 2008 in Europe and the US. And everybody and his brother goes with his insightful explanation, as if it was a fact.
Last time I checked, 2008 was in the future. And AFAIK, nobody knows the future. It's not like we never experienced that. The Internet bubble is not so old that we forgot its lessons. Do you remember the 2004 projections for internet advertising or 3G mobile data consumption back in 2000?
No, the US are not lagging behind because of the neo-cons, population density or consumer culture or whatever. The US ARE not lagging behind, period. The ONLY fact we can comment is that some (unknown) guy pretends that they WILL in 5 years.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
Europe already has a much higher population that the US. According the CIA World Fact Book, the US has a population of 290,342,554.
The combined population of the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Greece, Belgium, Demark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Sweden & The Netherlands is 380,116,637.
I just moved from the UK to the US. So the first night I arrive, I'm sitting in my corporate apartment on the 49th floor of some building in NY. I open up my laptop and start digging around under the desk for the phone connection, ready to feel the full power of 56k dialup :) Just then I hear a noise from the machine, look up, and it's found no fewer than 11 wireless networks, of which a massive *1* has any kind of security on it. So much for dialup - I've spent the last few weeks "borrowing" 2mbit cable lines :)
So I guess you can have more than a few working at once, but I don't know the technicalities of how/why it worked...
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The above poster mentioned Finaland and Norway, they are social-democratic countries with a market economy but also with some governmental regulations. Finland is a EU and Euro member, Norway is a EEC member. Both have massive amounts of their incomes from trade with other countries.
When you lump socialism together with communism you are degrading the difference between those two ways of running a country.
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