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The Assassination of Wi-Fi
justelite writes "John C. Dvorak from PC Magazine has up an article looking at the new strategy of American cell-phone-service companies. From article: 'There is mounting evidence that the cellular service companies are going to do whatever they can to kill Wi-Fi. After all, it is a huge long-term threat to them. We've seen that the route to success in America today is via public gullibility and general ignorance. And these cell-phone-service companies are no dummies.'"
I got "Nothing to see here. Move along".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
...Like GM killing the municipal trolley systems of the 50s. The idea that business can provide a "more efficient" delivery of some product is often total and complete BS.
He himself admitted to using "dubious facts" in trying to prove his case... which is why I've tagged this article with "dubiousfacts" and read the rest of it after he said that with a grain of salt. He made huge generalizations about how people see the internet that I've never seen, and he himself is confusing the difference between the web and the internet.
Municpal governments don't provide food, yet the grocery stores are full. They don't provide clothing, yet I'm wearing a shirt. And unless you're homeless and it's a cold night, they don't provide shelter. Yet here I am with a roof over my head. Food, clothing and shelter are FAR more necessary to my well being than wifi, yet the market manages to provide those necessities to me without the help of municipal government.
For some classes of products, such as sewers and drinkable water, it may make sense to put your local conniving pocket-lining councilman in charge. But I'm far from convinced that wifi falls under that category.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
When you say "if they're too dumb to ask for it, they're too dumb to deserve it. Same goes for sewers and drinkable water" I have very mixed feelings.
h tml
Most western Europeans didn't ask for sewers and drinkable water; they had them foisted upon them at tax payer expense in the mid 19th century. That is certainly true of the first modern large scale sewer system which was built in London. "The transcript traces more than 250 years of human misery, due largely to ignorance of the hazards of poor sanitation. Citizens, physicians, politicians, inventors and police provided vivid horror stories of 'miasmas, plagues and sudden death" in the homes of London.'" http://swopnet.com/engr/londonsewers/londontext1.
Ignorance is deadly but curable. Ignorance about the importance of sewers and drinkable water may seem inconceivable to many of us, but such ignorance in rampant around the world.
When I watch documentaries about poor ghettos in latin America, inevitably there are toddlers playing in open cesspools and teenagers standing around unemployed, uneducated, and idle. I see that and wonder why the teenagers aren't put to work digging sewers or at least keeping toddlers out of them. For the price of the cigarettes the teenagers smoke, children could be fed and sewers built and clean water supplies maintained. I always think to myself that people who prioritize cigarettes over sewers get what they deserve just like people generally get the government they deserve.
But then I am more charitable and assume that people live in horrid conditions because of ignorance. Ignorance causes poverty and death.
There was a documentary (I think on 20/20) about hunger in the U.S.A. A father was being interviewed and he explained that toward the end of the month, there is no bread left and the children have to go hungry for days. During the interview, the father was standing in front of his satellite dish and smoking. For the price of one pack of cigarettes, the children could have eaten basic stables like bread, potatoes, and canned vegetables for several days. For the price of the satellite dish and its likely monthly subscription, the children could have been clothed and fed.
I couldn't help thinking that the father's priorities were a little skewed and sad.
Well;
1. It's poorly written
2. PC Magazine does not hold any status for me, hence the kilo of salt is still burning in my belly.
Now, let's take a look at the general populace, and wifi as a whole. Cellular cards have to be bought and paid for over and above the laptop. Pretty much any laptop out today has an 802.11a/b/g chipset built into it and all versions of microsoft windows, be it XP or Vista will ask you if you want to "connect" to a public wireless network. so much so that it's considered a security risk by most companies.
Enter 3.5G and 4G. I'm no pundit but i've been in this industry long enough to see a failing standard a mile out, yes cell networks are liscenced, expensive and slow when compared with 802.11. Bell in Canada is rolling out 802.11 AP's on thier public phones. The cost of licensing the bands for 3.5G and 4G from the FCC and the CRTC in put the implementation of these networks into the billions. Where as a good metropolitan wifi implemenation will cost you back a few million.
It's called pervasive availability, and John needs to understand that people may be "STUPD" on a whole but he really should take his head out of his behind. if you have 3000+ laptops at any given moment and somones standing in a public area using it and they do not have a cellular card because they are "STUPID" they will proabaly notice the whole "Wifi" notice in XP when they sit in a coffee shop and start writeing, or when they are in a park outside.
EV-DO, EDGE and all those other toys require pre-requisite knoledge, ie: the client has to go out and become aware of these technologies before they can use them, they only compete where you have somone that flys a LOT.
My opinion shouldn't count as I am known to play with all the wireless networks I can find, and given the opportunity I'll use the 802.11. I guess i'm not stupid.
Bingo. The real problem with cell-phone data service is the ridiculous pricing regime. 10 cents for a 160 character text message? Get real. Lets suppose for a moment that audio consumes 10kbps and its latency sensitive. One minute retails for 30 cents... 10k*60/8b... you get the picture. Data rates are out of this world, disconnected from reality. That's the real story.