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Working Toward Roaming For Wireless ISPs
hrhsoleil writes "In the category of: This seems like a no-brainer and why-didn't-someone-do-it-before,
according to SearchMobileComputing, the Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization (IPDR) is pushing a set of specifications that would allow users to roam among different providers' hot spots. IPDR is an industry group that addresses billing issues for wireless carriers -- they've got the Wi-Fi Alliance, Gric Communications, and the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association backing them up on this one so it might actually get off the ground. It's about time that wireless ISPs get their act together and make roaming possible. If I can go to almost any bank machine in the world and be able to use it without needing to sign up for a new account, why can't I do the same with hot spots?"
Its a great idea, but as in the case of every good idea, its already being done, and has a patent.
see:
6,633,761
6,665,537
Probably more but I'm too lazy to look.
www.bleepyou.com
When's 802.11* going to support on-the-fly connection migration? Why can't I walk around a large area and switch between base stations automatically and invisibly as reception changes? That would go a long way towards making those "you're not tied down to anywhere"-type commercials a reality.
Granted, without the billing (because they feel that internet access should be free for their community), but many Dutch universities and research institutions together with SURFnet (the National Research and Education Network) have developed a roaming solution already. Based on IEEE 802.1x, EAP-TTLS and RADIUS it allows for seemless roaming between the participants.
This WiFi roaming has recently been extended and now institutions in Portugal and Croatia are joining as wel.
or we'd see "national plans" like cell phone providers have. You mention T-Mobile, which is probably not the only company who has agreements with other cell providers to allow T-Mobile customers to use other providers' networks free-of-charge. Free as in you pay more monthly for the ability to do this and certain freebies are taken out of your monthly allotment but instead of expensive and hard-to-estimate roaming charges you just have to keep up with how many minutes are in your base plan, along with how mobile-to-mobile minutes that were normally free when you are both on the T-Mobile network are deducted from plan minutes when you are on another provider's network and it affects night/weekend stuff and all that.
Overall, this plan could translate to ISPs without much alteration. However, the alteration that would take place would surely be COST to you the consumer.
As the founder of a free community hotspot , I wanna say, if giant corporations are willing to provide web services for free, because it's the only way to get people to come, why wouldn't we want to provide wireless access to those web services for free?
Basically, I don't see that the pay-to-play model of the wired ISP is the necessary model for wireless ISPs. In fact I think it's a doomed model. People are going to gravitate to the free hookups. It's not just cheaper, it's easier, and easier always wins.
It's not time to figure out how to get roaming on paid wireless ISPs. It's time to figure out how to stop charging for it.
The way this was supposed to work from the X500 and LDAP people, using ASN.1 syntax, is 'uid=joe,dc=mac,dc=com' would tell you to forward the authentication lookup to "mac.com" as "joe". I could theoretically do this from an AP owned and operated by dc=speakeasy,dc=net. The authentication thingie on the AP would ask its favorite directory for authentication service, and that directory would do referrals.
All you need to know is that you are "joe" at "mac.com" and the password to your Keychain(TM). If you like something other than MacOS X, then you will have to remember your WiFi password in addition to any other passwords :) .
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
The banks had something of a head start in doing this, since they already had inter-bank facilities in place (for things like wire transfers and check clearing).
Also, when ATMs first became popular, the banks were very hesitant to allow the use of machines belonging to other institutions. At least in the US, it was the success of the NYCE network in and around New York City that really broke the ice.
Another interesting historical tidbit: when the banks first started to introduce ATMs, some of them went to a couple of big supermarket chains, and offered to put in the machines for a fee paid by the supermarket. The supermarkets said, "Guess again. We'll put in our machines, and charge you a fee when your customers use them." (At that time the largest holders of currency in the US were not banks, but supermarkets. I don't know if that's still true.)
$2.50 still beats paying $10.00 - $30.00 each time and having to go through the hassle of getting the connection fees reimbursed from accounts payable. (Do you really have to pay $2.50 for the bank machine where you are? Highest I've ever seen is $1.50.)
802.11x devices have a unique 6byte MAC, like any ethernet card. If packets or ACKs were signed with a key generated on the MAC, the traffic could be controlled. That would allow multiple devices each to receive unique traffic for a single user, like their phone, car and sunglasses.
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make install -not war
I can't see myself paying $30 a month for cafe and hotel coverage in two years even if the roaming is seamless. EDGE is available nation-wide now (at ~168kbps its perfectly fine for email), EV-DO and EV-DV will up the speeds further, and then there's WiMax coming along with city-wide range for broadband. My hope is in a few years I'll just pay my garbage/sewer/WiMax utility and the roaming agreements will be between cities. Then I'll ditch the DSL and cell phone.
Such systems should include the possibility of negotiating rates on the fly. The mobile device should be programmed with upper prices for particular levels of service. Then, for each unit of service purchased a negotiation takes place. If the ISP is not busy the price is low. If the ISP is close to saturation the price is high. If there are multiple ISPs to choose from market competition occurs as everyone negotiates to determine the price. This would result in a balance between coverage and what people are willing to pay.
I don't think the "free" roaming involves any agreements between cell phone providers, any more than "free" long distance involves an agreement to carry long distance calls at no charge. Your provider covers the costs you rack up on other networks, and passes them on to you in your monthly fee. All they have to do is figure out how much to charge monthly to make a profit.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
The city government in Atlanta has a very similar program called FastPass. The idea is to get hotels, restaurants,etc to provide wireless service independantly but connect to the FastPass service. Subscribers to the FastPass network then can access any one of those sites, including the airport, the convention center and several hotels. You can get an account by the hour, for several days, or as a monthly subscription. When a subscriber to the service logs onto a independently provided network, the provider gets a portion of the Fastpass connect fee, determined by the time spent on the network (or maybe bandwidth?) Seems like a winning idea to me. Wish more places would sign up to become a part of the network though.
harmonious design
As far as goes, I've read a lot about it but have yet to see it catch fire the way Matt Jones predicted. Isn't warchalking just another an urban legend?
Its more refined than that even,
In most circumstances, the big players have "peering" arrangements. Its the same for long distance, VoIP, Internet, etc.
Essentially there are only a few players that own significant bandwidth on the Internet and closed-switching systems. They build physical locations where the networks tie together and the big fat pipes interconnect (hence, the InterNetworking of the Internet). Here is where accounting of packets/data transferred takes place. In most cases the big players trade packets 1-for-1, meaning, if Spring and MCI send each other an equal amount of data no money changes hand (well, perhaps it does on paper to prop up "gross income" or whatever, but an equal amount is paid out).
Money is only gained by one provider or another when there is an imbalance.
The same principle will generally apply to phone carriers: Company A will trade minute for minute long-distance calls for Company B of a similiar nature. Only when there is an imbalance of A->B or B->A calls is significant charging taking place. This means that in real terms the largest portion of the cost is maintaining the internal networks and support of the infrastructure. External connectivity reaches a point of critical mass where the demand to communicate with an organizations customers generates fees that offset its own outgoing costs.
Hopefully the same thing will happen with big and small Wireless ISP's. User A from ISP A will use 40MB of ISP B's bandwidth but no money will have to change hands since User B from ISP B will end up using 40MB of ISP A's bandwidth. Some of the smaller WiSP's - say in rural areas or less traveled areas - will end up having to pay for an imbalance in, say, metropolitian Florida or New York or California, but in general, in many cases, the amount needed to expend to make this work financially isn't a huge barrier.
Over time the system is likely to become very smooth and automatic. Today calling long-distance triggers dozens of systems across a myraid of billing systems, but magically, somehow, the bills are *generally* accurate, the plans complex but manageable, and service universal reliable - even though there are nearly a half-dozen big long-distance companies out there.
I have an applescript for OS 9 that will speak the names of all unencrypted wireless nodes in the area and indicate good signal.
Slashdot does not let me post the code (BELIEVE ME I tried).
Email me if you with to play with it.
zavpublic at mac.com
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
My local ISP, www.sonic.net is currently marketing a scheme to try to encourage us not to freely share our DSL-connected WAP's. We take the last IP of our four assigned #'s and hook our WAP to that number. A valid sonic.net account holder driving by logs in via the supplied VPN client and then they can go online. No charge other than their normal monthly charges for their account. Anyone not able to log in only gets the ISP's webpage. If another sonic.net subscriber logs through your WAP, you get some token kickback, like $0.50 per day, up to some maximum. The payback barely compensates for having to log in to use my own WAP, but I could see if all ISP's did this, the next step would be to interconnect and have true roaming...the accounting would already be in place.