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Researchers Test WiFi Access From Moving Vehicles
Julie188 writes "Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Massachusetts have been working on a technology that would let mobile phones and other 3G devices automatically switch to public WiFi even while the device is traveling in a vehicle. The technology is dubbed Wiffler and earlier this year its creators took it for a test drive with some interesting results. Although the researchers determined that a reliable public WiFi hotspot would be available to their test vehicles only 11% of the time, the Wiffler protocol was able to offload almost 50% of the data from 3G to WiFi."
The multipath and doppler effects SUCK. This is why Wimax doesn't work well in vehicles and why the Mobile Wimax variant is more popular in such realms.
But once you have the physical layer taken care of, you can play cool little tricks like data queuing for WAPs to save cost. Locational awareness is also feasible to anticipate whether there will be a hotspot in a quarter of a mile or to go ahead with the transfer now.
When I hit one of these, it sort of grinds everything to a halt, as the phone thinks it has a wi-fi connection but does not.
San Francisco Photographers
References to the situation I described:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6960304.stm
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070116/115327.shtml
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
So, if I have an electrical outlet outside of my house and I don't "secure it", should people be able to plug into my electricity with impunity? How about my garden hose? If I don't physically bar someone from parking in my driveway, that's OK? Is it OK to help yourself to my garden? How about siphoning the gas out of my car?
There's loads of things in the physical world that aren't necessarily secured, but that you don't have a reasonable expectation of being able to use.
I don't agree in any way that just because the wireless isn't 100% locked down that you should get a free pass to just use it. You know you're using a network that isn't yours -- just because you can connect to it doesn't mean you have carte blanch.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
... researchers determined that a reliable public WiFi hotspot would be available to their test vehicles only 11% of the time ...
but then a closer look found that in those cases, 99% had the SID "Free Public WiFi".
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I thought this was called "How Google Got In Trouble (aka 'HoGGIT')"
But how would a city bus line offering Wi-Fi negotiate carriage with every AP on its routes?
And would a bus using this technology in the Netherlands have to register as an ISP?
I see where you're going with that line of thinking and I agree to an extent. However, all of those analogies require you to physically go out and take/plug in/steal something that clearly isn't yours and shouldn't be.
Logging onto an unsecured WiFi connection can be done incredibly easy while I'm in my pajamas in the middle of a blizzard. It can also be done innocently and unknowingly. "Wait, there are 4 "linksys" networks, which was mine again?".
While I don't agree with torrenting or otherwise saturating someones connection, leaving it wide open and then being pissed when someone logs onto it is almost as ridiculous as yelling to your neighbor across the street and getting mad when another neighbors listens in and potentially adds their two cents. If you're not going to take the time to secure your broadcast transmissions, don't get pissed at those who listen/use it.
I certainly hope so, because that will help overturn the rules that imply same for hotels. It simply doesn't make sense; if it has to be regulated, it could just as easily be changed to "a hotel has to register as an ISP if it provides network access to others than their guests". It's besides the point though, as far as TFA is concerned. However, trains already provide Wi-Fi as we speak and buses may just as well - and they'll have a harder time convincing the powers that be that they're not serving the public. It will be nigh impossible to restrict access to people inside the bus, unless you feel like changing the passkey for the connection every you hop onto a bus.
The transit system around here was working on that for a while. What they did was set up a low power access point in the middle of the bus, and hooked that up to a cellular card. The effect was that you were using WiFi, but since you were in the same reference frame, you didn't have to deal with any of the random interruptions you would otherwise have to deal with.
The main problem would be in tunnels and plain old congestion.
with the typical AP having only a 300m range in open air and traveling at 55+ MPH, they would be in and out of the AP quite quickly. But, if they were sitting in traffic then that would be another story. I've been quite disappointed with how many of the Android apps rely on 100% data connectivity instead of intermittent connectivity. Even the facebook app just dumps a notification and does not continue with the post or upload unless the user interacts with the notification. I found no setting in the maps/navigation app to cache the route but must rely on me manually scrolling through the entire route to cache it and then hit the road. Believe it or not, there are still dead xG spots out there and wifi-only is currently not an option.
Maybe this study will wake up the apps developers to intermittent connectivity and make the device much easier to use.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus