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No WiFi In 'Grantsdale' Chipset
bizpile writes "A company spokesman confirmed Friday, Intel has decided not to enable the wireless access-point functionality in its 'Grantsdale" chipset. Intel decided not to include this feature because of the proliferation of cheap wireless access points. Spokesman Dan Snyder said, 'So many wireless APs are out there, and they're essentially free" when purchased in conjunction with DSL or cable service from an ISP. The company may still develop a custom chipset to re-enable the WiFi functionality if a large customer requests it. Also, their Centrino plans and production will be unchanged."
The company may still develop a custom chipset to re-enable the WiFi functionality if a large customer requests it.
7'2" 300 lbs... do I count?
This is a good thing. There's little reason to enable wi-fi in the chipset, and this eliminates the chance that something will be wrong with it. This means fewer patches and a more stable system.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
It seems to me that it was more of a nonessential feature getting cut in order to ship ontime. They do have a point though that WAPs are cheap, but more often than not they suck. Why else would people turn certain WiFi network cards into WAPs (perhaps on a Linux server)? If there was some sort of awesome "do everything" WAP and for cheap, maybe then you'd have a valid excuse to cut this feature out.
What's the big deal? They disabled the ability to use the pre-installed chipset as an access point. This is just a cheap, consumer grade chipset for people who want wireless to come with the laptop they buy. anyone who needs to use their laptop as an access point will know about this and buy a different laptop, or just use a different Wifi card.
Wireless network cards for desktops are never free. Access points are not generally free either, unless somehow bundled with the Internet service by the ISP. Maybe I am missing something.
How much would it cost Intel to enable the WiFi? I mean... if it's a small cost, then they'd get their wireless access points into computers instantly so people don't have to go out and buy wireless APs. I mean, if my computer came with a wireless access point, then I certainly wouldn't go out and buy another one (unless it was terrible). It's the same deal with firewire. Most people don't use it, but it's sure a lot more convenient if it was there when you needed it.
Hate to be suggesting monopolistic marketing ideas, but Intel can really get a lot of their wireless AP into computers by bundling it.
Kidding! ;)
Agile Artisans
What I don't understand is why anyone needs a wifi access point in their desktop. I know it could be useful in some circumstances, but far more useful, IMHO would be an on board adapter so you could just log onto your wifi network w/your desktop.
Intel made a 486SX chip which was a 486 with the math co-processor disabled and it was slightly cheaper than the 486DX. They also sold a 487SX which they called the co-processor, but in truth it was just a 486 with a working co-pro, and when you used the 487SX, it completely disabled the 486SX and took over as the only CPU in the system.
The whole thing seemed like a test of how gullible their customers were. It looks like they're doing the same thing again.
Jason
ProfQuotes
And as a complementary gift for our "large customers" we provide coupons for 20 big macs per buyer. *Lawyer whispers in Intel CEO's ear* And by large buyer we mean someone who buys a lot of our products, we would never, ever think to provide so much almost 700g of pure fat to those struggling with weight at McDonalds...
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
that maybe someone who's more familiar with Intel's recent chips could answer...
When Intel says they're "disabling" this, do they mean they're going to be physically leaving it out, or permanently disabling it, or just deactivating a jumper or something? By which I mean, could overclockers re-enable the feature on chips they possessed themselves if they really, really wanted to?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
How about nonsensical? Why in HELL does it make sense to put a WIRELESS NETWORKING RECEIVER in your central processing unit?? I think Marketing is driving Intel's engineering decisions these days...
haven't look into Grantsdale processor yet, assuming it will be used in a laptop, won't it be more battery friendly to let cpu handle the wireless function instead of having another power hungry minipci wifi card? It's a sure winner if this can at least add 30 minutes to the battery life.
This Sig is removed due to factual inaccuracy
English is easier said than done.
How interesting is it that we read this after seeing the interview with Craig Barrett posted earlier where he says that Intel's future growth is dependent on merging their technology with communications. Ha!
Yes, I read the article.
And even the article is unclear about being either the Access Point component or the 802.11x in the chipset.
My guess is that they are leaving a feature connector attached for a third party WIFI card, and disabling the Access Point features.
Which means absolutly nothing. The third party WIFI card can act as an Access Point.
Can a daughter card providing WIFI be considered part of the chipset (ala Centrino)?
I really wish article authors could show an attempt to clarify ideas.
There aren't any buyers for the feature, so it's not enabled. If a company isn't going to be able to turn a profit, then they don't waste resources. Otherwise, they cut their losses and move on.
Not exactly a rewrite, but how's this?
It's good to hear that Intel won't be including wi-fi capability in its upcoming chipset..
With all the talk about them including DRM in their processors it would have been interesting, and scary as well, to see how it would affect their wi-fi chips (had they continued production)..
Might as well make their job easier (and a deeper stab at privacy) by having it notify them in seconds of any sort of "violations".. *cough cough*
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
Perhaps this is Intel's first steps toward their own secure implementation of the wireless WEP protection. As any bearded terminal hacker knows, WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol) is insecure in it's use of shifting between key frames, so perhaps Intel has come up with a solution for this that is more secure than the hacks that Cisco and Lucent have put into place so far.
Let us assume electricity costs $0.15 per kWh.
I'll assume you already have a low-end PC for use "Free", e.g. already paid for and with a market value near zero.
I will also assume you can configure it to spin down the HD and turn off the monitor. We'll say this is around ~30W; it's actually much less if your processor is idle. My via c3 backup server consumes about 14W, the firewall a little more, an older 486 at around 20W.
Let's stick with 30W. To be a fair comparison, it needs to run a wireless card. That's not a major addition to power, but we'll account for it.
30W is 0.003 kW, so per day, this device costs 0.72kWh x $0.15/kWh = $0.108/day. Per year electricity cost would be roughly $40.
An access point costs about $150 in my parts; I'll say you can get it for $100 for the sake of arguement though.
At 12W, using the above calculations again, this access point takes 40% of the power. Or, a yearly power bill of about $16. The difference in the power bills is $24.
So it would take about 4 years to catch up, assuming the access point doesn't die. I have enough spare parts and obsolete hardware to run a firewall indefinately for no extra expense. The PC based firewall can do a lot more stuff too - much more configurable, patchable, can run other servers, etc etc. I run OpenBSD on mine and find it more than adequate. Plus, unlike every access point I've seen in the $100 range, my ages-old USR modem I bought 10 years ago sits there doing it's job shuffling bits around. No DSL in these parts.
At best I'd consider it a draw. You add a little polution, but can save that firewall computer from ending up as toxic waste, too.
Myself, I run an access point and a firewall. I don't like trusting one device to do everything, and I know the firewall is very hard to beat.
..don't panic
Other than economics I wonder why Intel just doesn't produce a kick-ass mini-PCI card that supports the various wireless standards and then flog the Hell out of it to the PC makers. The mini-PCI approach, combined with well designed internal antennas works very well for the Macintosh.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Much better thanks. I think i'm going to go throw up now.
Have you metaroderated recently?
very few business apps needed a FPU, so it was a fair tradeoff
And then the 3D FPS was invented. DOOM and QUAKE really needed that FPU to work properly (QUAKE required one, IIRC). That's the real reason the FPU made it's way back into the mainstream chips, gaming made it a must-have.
Before that, the FPU only made a difference if you were doing SERIOUS number crunching, and I'm not talking about excel.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Who would ask for WIFI to be put into the chipset of a computer?
Look back five or eight years. Who would have asked for any network card to be built into the chipset of a computer? (I remember listening to people whine that the IDE controllers were being integrated into the chipsets.) And yet NVidia's integrated NIC is a top-notch performer, and it's tough to find a motherboard without integrated network these days. And as more people move from ethernet to wireless networking, moving from embedded ethernet to embedded wireless is a natural shift - and I believe that we will, in the future, see more motherboards with integrated wireless networking.
Who would like an Access Point feature placed into the chipset?
Anyone who wants to use the computer as a router. You know, like all of those people who use PCs with that one OS as routers. What was it called? Oh yeah, "Linux"....
There is, of course, no denying that Microsoft does some pretty underhanded and monopolistic things. But, there's also no denying that these things (done correctly) can be a great convenience to a lot of people.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
. . .you insensitive clod!
*Sigh*
I got a belkin 54G router, a clone of the 54G linksys, for $7.50 CDN.
It was a $50.00 instant rebate with a $50.00 mailin rebate on a $99.00 router.
The rebate came in 4 weeks.
So NET I paid the tax on $50.00 or $7.50. Free and the goverment still gets it's cut.
And the router works and there is a linux distro for it too.
This is Intel's way of saving face, the Si is there but it's not working. It's taking up at least at least 20cents of Si real estate and they're not using it! Not even Intel are that rich!
Nobody mentioned yet that the article title is misleading? It's not that there's no WiFi in Grantsdale, it's just that the Grantsdale wi-fi card will be a normal client and won't be able to double as an access point.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
If its true that its available most everywhere, and for free, why not include WIFI be default, since most people will want/use it?
Or did i miss something obvious here?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
According to some old Slashdot stories, wireless computing seems to be proliferating but isn't profitable and Intel had been looking into makeing chips that use cellular networks for wireless connectivity, which would have to come with a fee. Crippling the Wifi networking at the consumer level and steering them towards using cellular networks would be more agreeable to and supported by established industries.
However, like the story says "The company may still develop a custom chipset to re-enable the WiFi functionality if a large customer requests it". This may be in response to Sun's research into using wireless connections between processors to create a supercomputer, as part of a DARPA funded program. Intel would undoubtedly want to maintain it's dominance in the processor market, and would want to enable that sort of functionality in its own processors. Anyone building a supercomputer requiring a large number of wireless processors could be considered a "large customer" that "requests it".
I don't know how Intel's current processor WiFi capabilities compare to Sun's implementation of wireless connections between processors, but if Intel maintains this approach to the integration of wireless technology in its processors as they develop it, then it would ensure its participation at both the consumer level and in large-scale supercomputer projects.
A-Fucking-Men. Why can't we just have a prefs option to stop taking us to the section-specific "sites" (really, hostnames) so we can stop seeing the stupid colors? I'd prefer if I NEVER had to see a section-specific color scheme again, and I don't want to use a proxy, they complicate things.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, I agree. And I wish my daughter (she's a card) might be clearer. Sorry - but just couldn't help myself
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
This might help, I use it.
English is easier said than done.