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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.
"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"
Poor security will kill Wi-Fi.
... how the purveyors of bottled water would like to see kitchen sinks banned.
If pretty much anyone else said this, I might take it seriously, however, it's coming from John C. Dvorak.
By definition, PEOPLE alect muicipal governments. If they want wifi they can ask for it. If they're too dumb to ask for it, they're too dumb to deserve it. Same goes for sewers and drinkable water.
This is not a signature.
wifi is teh good.
They might actually kill WiFi provided they can get their prices down to $49 worth of hardware and the cost of a land line, supply at least 2 computers and more bandwidth, enough for video, or at least as much as WiFi.
So when I can use 3 computers for $29/mo I am game... but forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting. Oh, and skip the roaming and by the minute charges. And can I share videos with the neighbors for free...without being monitored?
...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.
I'm not convinced that the big, evil cell phone companys are really trying to kill WiFi. Nor do I think they will. But if the author does, where are the examples. Where is the smoking gun that some cell phone company or other has petitioned a municipality to kill the free WiFi in the community? An add that only shows that Sprint is trying to sell their product?
In all honesty, I think the author is having a slow news day and doesn't have anything else to whine (sorry, write) about. But then, I've not been a fan of his work for quite a while, and whining grates on my nerves.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Interesting....as soon as Rogers telecommunications here in toronto learned that the city announced they would be offering free wifi internet for a year and then paid.... Rogers retorted and announced their own wi-fi service... as if they had to pull it out of their ass
We've seen that the route to success in America today is via public gullibility and general ignorance.
How do we mark the summary as a troll?
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but come on.
The range is ridiculous or requires big antennas,...
Range? Do you really think there's no cell tower at less than 100m from you? In San Francisco? Let me doubt it. Never mind these pesky new protocols (WiMax, for example, even if it's a braindead specification) who allow you to connect from kilometres away. On the antenna subject, a bigger antenna doesn't equal better reception.
Transmitters that, as we all know, cover every WiFi signal in... ten meters around, since they are usually inside houses?
It's a completely different product.
Which explains why 3G works on top of IPv6. Yeah, it must be a completely different product: it provides the same service, uses the same technology. The only difference is the frequency range: 3G works on the 5GHz band (which requires almost line of sight to work, so there goes your complaint about range).
Next time, please document yourself beforehand. It doesn't matter your being moderated Insightful when your post if actually off base.
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.
This editorial in Forbes entitled "Wireless Shootout: Suits vs. Cowboys" points out that cellular carriers and next-generation WiFi technology may be replaying the past competition between mainframes ("suits") and PCs ("cowboys"). The cellular carriers are inherently limited in their ability to adapt to modern wireless requirements because they operate under three fundamental constraints: a build-out mentality, vertical integration, and complicated pricing. The author points out that this same mindset ultimately caused mainframe suppliers to lose their dominance to the more nimble PCs in mainstream computing, and predicts that for the same reasons, more adaptable next-generation wireless technology such as WiMAX and ZigBee will ultimately prevail over cellular infrastructure in the future.
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
They really are two fundementally different technologies. WiFi isn't really designed for roaming, and it sure isn't much good at any distance for non-line-of-sight without raising power levels far beyond what anyone is allowed to do. Since WiFi actually wants to deliver a meaningful amount of bandwidth, that's just the way it is. Cellular networks, on the other hand, don't have the bandwidth issues, since voice communications and text messaging are hardly in the same league with surfing the Internet for pr0n at 1280x1024 in 32 bit color. Dvorak just pulls this stuff out of his ass. He doesn't give a shit whether it represents reality, has any evidence, or even is conceivable.
The fact is that cell and WiFi aren't mutually exclusive, and in large urban centers where one can expect good coverage, phones will doubtless be able to access IP networks directly, whereas where there isn't coverage, or where a guy is just making a phone call, the cellular network will do just fine.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm sorry, but this article says nothing more than it's title.
There are no:
1) Facts
2) Specific instances of any wireless company activity
3) Conspiracy theories about how they might be going about this...
While it may be true that widespread wi-fi may threaten a part of the cell phone provider business model, the article makes no mention of any company doing anything about it (save the introduction of a couple data access cards).
The article also does not address the common-sense fact that Wi-Fi (as it currently exists) can't replace the type of coverage that the cell phone company can give you.
It seems that Dvorak's editors have even lower standards than those of Slashdot!!
The commonly-available "LINKSYS" Wi-Fi service won't be going away any time soon.
Go here
http://www.fon.com/en/
get a damn wifi router, stick it on your cable/dsl (they give them away sometimes, too, but a few $ is worth it), now, you can get wifi from everyone else who is sharing their 'net.
I can walk a few blocks in most cities and get online. Help us (and yourself) out, m'kay?
The latest Slashdot meme.
...same as when they killed CB radio. My response then is the same now - 300 watts of cold steel Palomar SSB amplifier.
So, "There is mounting evidence that the cellular service companies are going to do whatever they can to kill Wi-Fi." What evidence, where? No mention of any such evidence in the article, just some business analysis.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
The article's title is the "Killing of WiFi" and there not one word about how the telco's are going to do it. Jam the 2.4 GHz ISM band? Sue cities that offer free WiFi? Get the Congress to ban free WiFi?
If the answer is "no" or "I don't know" then I may be looking for alternatives.
Yes, its called VPN and to be honest if you're using public/semi-public wi-fi hotspots without it then you deserve whatever happens to you.
"If I do trust it's legit, do I trust the people running it to not make critical mistakes that could compromise my data?"
I can ask the same of whatever data network the cell phone companies provide. What's their standard on encryption, authentication and other security matters?
Question for you: If you're that concerned about security, why don't use you a VPN or a SSH tunnel?
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
On roaming experience, YMMV, of course. But I know it can work, since I'm taking advantage of it daily. You talk about handovers at the administrative limits, but forget that those handovers have been sorted time and time again (see standard cellular handovers between different commercial providers). Why shouldn't they now? And consider, also, that such handovers are less important when you get a city council to wire(?) a whole city. About range, please read again what I said about the 3G band range.
You'll take working service instead of spotty one. Good. But don't assume that, because current WiFi access is spotty, it will always be so. If I can get good WiFi access here in Spain for free, so can you in the US.
3G coverage, seamless? Methinks not, out of big cities at least. And yes, the 5GHz band allows for unlicenced use, so it's not exclusive (I'm starting to wonder if you really read my post): I can't fathom how 802.11a would be allowed otherwise.
I admit the current state of 2.4GHz WiFi leaves much to be desired, but in the US you already have 8002.11a, which works in the same band as 3G does, is already implemented and has less interference problems. And I still can't see how, suffering the same technical limitations, you can still say they are different products. Is IPv6 over 3G different from IPv6 over 802.11a WiFi? I just don't see it.
Are cell phone companies powerful?
Yes, of course
Do other companies, with political pull, have an interest in more global wifi access?
Yes, of course...
Will more global wifi access be free?
Not likely, but it probably will be available. Cell phone networks surely can profit from this and they already do. Isn't it lucrative to offer a cellular connection to the internet and then provide wifi from that location (shouldn't this be obvious to John)? I do believe that AT&T offered to provide me with overpriced wi-fi access the last time I walked into Barnes and Noble. I'm failing to find anything relevant in the entire article.
What we need is laws to protect private users who share their bandwidth and standards in APs to make it easy for them to do so and to create a standard way for people to connect. An open wirless AP in every home and business should just be expected. Let the users create the network themselves if you really want what is best for the consumer. Of course businesses will cry foul over their lost chance to squeeze every penny out of the consumer and government will cry foul because it'd make it much harder to control and spy on the consumer.
Eventually it will happen though. There are just to many benefits to the consumer and to few downsides for it not to eventually. Someone just needs to release a killer app for the system and people will flock to it. Consumers don't understand technical reasons something will be ebtter but if they lust for a product that users it then they'll demand it.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
4 years ago, my professor for personal mobile communications class said wi-fi and cellular complements each other. It was his first year at school after 5-6 years of experience in one of the biggest cellular (hardware) companies. Later, he corrected himself by saying both sides are trying to kill each-other: cellular is trying to provide higher data rates (and hence WCDMA etc.) and wi-fi is trying to incorporate mobility and hand-off which are essential for voice communications (and hence WiMAX, IEEE 802.20 etc.). I believe at some point both will merge if the IP rights issues could be solved.
Competition is always good for both end user and for engineers (and engineers to be like myself).
You make an interesting technical argument, but there are a few details I think you missed. The 2.4 GHz and the 5.6 GHz bands are license free ISM bands. They allow ANY device to operate, within reason, provided the device conforms to certain power radiation limits and stays within the ISM band limits. There are many different kinds of RF devices operating in ISM bands including (but not limited to) diathermy machines, induction heaters, cordless telephones, and microwave ovens.
There is a physical chemistry reason why certain frequencies were designated for the ISM bands; they happen to be frequencies that are not as useful as other (similar) frequencies for communication purposes because those frequencies represent electrical resonances in commonly occurring atmospheric gas molecules. These resonances cause excessive path loss in what would otherwise be usable free space paths. Water is one molecule that causes excessive path loss, but only at certain frequencies. The fact some of the ISM bands coincide with water molecule resonances is not an accident. Ever wonder why your microwave oven operates at 2.4 GHz in the ISM band and not some other frequency? The radio frequency energy absorbed by all those water molecules has to go somewhere....and the conversion of RF energy into molecular vibration (heat) is a good candidate for the cause of the excessive path loss at 2.4 GHz compared to path losses at 2.3 GHz or 2.5GHz.
The cellular companies all operate on licensed frequencies for which they have paid "Big Bucks" to the Federal Government and they need to make a return on their "Investment" for their shareholders. BTW, the fees the cellular companies pay to the FCC have been used by Congress to balance the Federal budget. There is a long story here that I won't go into now about spectrum use, but suffice it to say, the creation of the Cellular telephone" bands was not the first time, nor the last time, that Congress has "auctioned" off parts of the RF spectrum to the highest bidder, spectrum previously used for other purposes.
The cellular phone companies routinely disable features built into the hardware and software in many of the newer cell phones because they hope to force their customers into paying exorbitant prices for "enabling" those features, even if these are features that actually have almost no inherent cost. SMS is one example. SMS stands for "Short Message Service" and is actually the use of a very small portion of the bit rate available to cell phone users. SMS bits are like "space available" seats on airliners, they are used to fill otherwise partly empty data packets, so SMS should cost users almost nothing, but SMS users pay a higher price for SMS bits than they do for voice data bits when they talk.
I think the reason for this is consumer ignorance. Kids frequently "texting" each other have no idea how SMS works, nor do they know how much bandwidth they are NOT using when they send SMS messages to each other. SMS does not even have guaranteed delivery, unlike some other wireless messaging protocols. But don't forget that a corporation is legally obligated to make as much money as possible for its stockholders.
The infrastructure cost of an ad hoc 802.11x mesh network is "unfair competition" as far as the cellular operators are concerned because 802.11x access point costs only a few hundred dollars each. Site rent for them is also low because they usually are located on top of streetlight poles. But the cellular phone operators must pay rent for their sites on the order of $1500 each per month, on top of hardware investments in the many thousands of dollars. This "overhead" cost for the cellular operators must come from somewhere, or they will go out of business.
An analog gray hair frantically clinging to the trailing edge of technology.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Next time, please document yourself beforehand. It doesn't matter your being moderated Insightful when your post if actually off base"
Wow, quite a comment for a post with multiple technical errors.
"3G works on top of IPv6"
Wrong.
WCDMA networks (such as Cingular's) don't even use IP for data routing within the network.
CMDA network (such as Verizon & Sprint) use Mobile IP for packet data routing but not for voice. It is not IPv6.
"it provides the same service, uses the same technology"
Wrong.
The radio access technologies are completely different.
3G networks have defined core network architectures, WiFi does not even specify this.
"3G works in the 5GHz band"
Wrong.
In US, 3G services operate in 850 and 1900 MHz bands.
In Europe, 2100 MHz is used.
If you had bothered to read thru the wikipedia article you linked to, you would have seen the above frequency bands listed.
WiFi is NOT a threat to cellular carriers as there can be no guarantee of service quality when using the shared ISM band as you cannot control who will also be broadcasting in that spectrum and therefore who will be interfering with you.
Your comment about "I can keep my connection" may work for your Outlook client using session-less https.
However, try setting up a VOIP call (or even an ftp session) and see if this handoff is seamless (it won't be).
The reason is you must completely fall off of the current WiFi access point before trying to find another.
With a cell network, the mobile constantly monitors neighboring cells in the network and move to a better cell when it sees one is available.
This does not happen with current WiFi gear (a,b,g,n).
Are the WiFi standards moving towards solving some of these handover issues? Yes.
However, if and when WiFi Access points support this, they will become more dependant on network configuration and mgmt.
This will add cost and actually make them more like the cellular networks they are trying to replace.
As another poster mentioned, WiFi access points may end up augmenting the current 3G cellular networks (this is actually in the 3gpp Rel6 specs) but will not replace them.
What is a threat (or at least a potential threat) to cellular carriers is traditional circuit-switched services (such as voice) moving to packet based networks.
Currently, cell carriers have no way to recover lost revenue if voice calls move to application level VOIP-type services such as skype.
To combat this, cell carriers are working to introduce the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) which use SIP-based protocols to setup all call services.
This way the carriers can migrate to a packet based network while still being able to charge for individual services.
This is no different from what the traditional fixed-line voice providers are going thru now that cable/DSL providers can offer packet based VOIP services.
However, the above has little to do with what air-interface technology is used (be it WiFi, 3G, WiMAX, or anything else).
Will the switch to SIP-based packet services by the cell carriers benefit the consumer?
Hard to tell.
In the short term, probably not, as it will likely still be cheaper to use services such as skype.
However, as these new services get fully rolled out, competition between cell carriers (and potentially others such as fixed-line or cable carriers) will eventually drive the prices similar to what is offered by skype-like services.
The advantage will be that now a standardized technology (SIP) will be used instead of many proprietary ones (such as skype) which should, according to slashdot philosophy at least, lead to better interoperability and a wider range and lower cost of supported products.
is this a joke or something? lets see if this gets modd'd insightful
Kill your TV
The air and water are public resources. Privatization of them is not a good thing, if you can't accept that stop reading and please shoot yourself now.
Sewers must use common pipes for many reasons, water as well. This requires a "neutral" area of land for interconnections. Nearly all roads are a public resource (well, the land is.) Typically, the pipes run on the land the roads also do. Depending on the wisdom & corruption of your local government determines how well it is managed.
Using the SAME LOGIC we regulate radio waves. Its a public resource and its quite limited. The FCC is doing a poor job managing OUR air waves. Cell phone companies are wasting good bandwidth with this so called "wonderful" competition. It would be better to force them to share a wide band, which would necessitate some sort of industry standard. Its not necessary to mandate specifics, but if competent at it, I see no reason why not to do so as well.
Its under this direction of management that it begins to make sense to have local governments setup more; depending on how much accessibility you want.
Given how bad cell phones and ISPs are today, I can't see how a somewhat corrupt government can't beat them.
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