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The Tablet Debate: 3G Or Wi-Fi?
Barence writes "We regularly review tablets and mention the fact that X tablet has Wi-Fi, Y tablet has 3G, but how many people are interested in each? Do most people view 3G as a must-have extra, or is Wi-Fi plenty for a device most commonly used in the home? We asked our readers for their opinions and the responses were fairly evenly split between those on both sides, with a healthy proportion also saying they may not choose it but like to have 3G as an option. What do Slashdotters think? Is 3G a must-have for tablets or will a tethered smartphone do the job?"
I would love 3G, so I can get web access all over the place, but when they want to charge me $50/month for 5Gb of data... GTFO
I concur. I think it's ridiculous to pay for a data plan on a tablet when I already have a smart phone with a data plan.
the trusty pile of sticks and blanket.
My laptop, my phone, and my tablet should all just be viewports and ways of interacting with one homogenous device. They should all be integrated parts of a whole.
To that end, I do not care which thing has which feature. I just care that I can seamlessly access the Internet no matter where I am.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
If you have a gsm phone... If you are unfortunate to have a cdma phone - your internet connection will drop out every time someone calls you.
That could become annoying.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Is a $200 graphics card a must-have?
Are hiking boots a must-have?
Is a baby stroller a must-have?
Is 4WD a must-have?
The answers to these questions and many more: It depends, you idiot!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Until we get Personal Area Networks properly working (a la Shadowrun 4, where your phone is just a voice interface to the same uplink node that everything else you have is also using), I would go with tethering. It just makes more sense to me, instead of having to have two separate contracts for 3G connectivity... and isn't that one of the entire points behind Bluetooth anyways?
Can't use the tablet while driving, have wifi in the coffee shop while on a driving break.
Can't use the tablet with G3 on the plane, when lucky the in-air wifi is working.
Have wifi in the airport terminal.
Have wifi at home.
Have wifi at work.
That is about where I would have the need for a tablet, so wifi will do, thank you I will keep the $50/month in pocket.
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
WiFi only, have no need for a bunch of 3G data plans.. Use a 4G Hotspot for all my toys... Verizon CDMA no voice call dropouts because the Hotspot is not a phone. Want to connect 1 device, 3 up to 5 (never needed to do that yet). Up to 16Mbps down using LTE... but do have to watch the quota. Use my phone way too much for voice when I need data for tethering it. Have even teathred my phone to it to get 4G instead of just the EVDO 3G the phone has. Rare occurrence.
Any time you have the telephone company involved with your computer, expect grief. If you don't absolutely require built-in connectivity to a cell network, Try to avoid this pain. Just two issues: 1) the provider will try to install software onto your machine that you don't want, can't delete and can't shut off; 2) the provider is not interested in upgrading your ROM for any other reason than locking you even more into their own services.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
It hardly matters which you use, other than wifi if a far more secure interface and much more robust.
You are going to run another radio anyway, why opt for bluetooth over wifi, especially when they are usually built into the same chipset. There is no power saving involved in one over the other.
When I turn on my wifi tethering in my Nexus One, AT&T doesn't know its tethering, and I have a fully encrypted WPA2 hotsopt.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I use a Novatel MiFi device to provide Internet access to my iPad on the go. For $20/mo. I get unlimited data (within my state) and I have the ability to attach up to four more devices. I had rather go this route than tether my smartphone (tethering drains my battery pretty fast). The MiFi is tiny and fits in my iPad case, which is a huge plus. I would love 3G embedded into my device, but major carrier plans are ridiculously priced and limited at the moment (I'm looking at you, AT&T). If their pricing/cap structure ever changed, then I would consider a 3G-model tablet.
In my area, Cablevision, Time Warner, and Comcast have lined the major highways with Wifi access points. Even better, I can register my mobile device MAC addresses on the Cablevision web site, so I don't even have to go through a sign-in (it looks like an open access point to a registered MAC), and there's no extra charge for WiFi connectivity (it's included in the home internet cost).
My wife has been driving while I Googled - in a moving vehicle - with no problem. The hand-offs seem to work fine. The more ubiquitous WiFi is, the less important 3G is. Why pay a monthly fee for something you don't need?
I've received a survey from my cable company asking a series of questions about cellular use, and inquiring whether I'd be interested in a completely unlimited, uncapped voice/text/data Android smartphone for $29/month. I suspect that the cable companies will be offering WiFi based service in the not-too-distant future over their internet/WiFi infrastructure.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
> Unless you're a millionaire, internet over 3G is way too expensive.
Not quite. You forgot probably the most important group: Those spending OPM. And those in NY or CA where normal economics don't apply.
But yea, any person spending $50/mo of their own money for 3G on a tablet needs their head examined. Good grief people, just how attached to the damned Internet do you have to be, DSL or cable modem at home, $50-$100/mo/person in the household for smartphone(s) and now tablets?
If the cell companies won't allow tethering, won't offer an extra device plan, etc. then 3G is kinda pointless. Of course it already is pointless, which is why they try so hard to make sure nobody actually uses much of it, because unless/until they get microcells on every street there ain't enough bandwidth via radio to be practical. Too bad they keep showing endless commercials showing people watching movies and video chatting on their phones, people keep expecting they can do those things and get pissed when they can't.
Democrat delenda est
Can't use the tablet while driving
Can use the tablet while on a bus.
Have wifi in the airport terminal.
At how much extra per month?
** Apple-police dispatched. Please remain at your current location **
Requiem for the American Dream
No.
Try it.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Good point. You know, don't you, that Apple negotiated some pretty slick pay-as-you-go plans with Verizon and ATT for their 3G iPads. I think with ATT, for example, it's $15.00 for 250MB in a 30-day period. Not super-awesome on a per-MB cost, but there's no startup cost, no recurring cost unless you choose to re-up, and you can stop it any time.
It's way better than paying an extra $20/mo commitment for tethering when maybe you'll only need it for the two weeks you're on that bike trip and staying at cheap motels.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Different radios use different amounts of power. Bluetooth was designed to be low power, that's why Bluetooth headseats can go forever on a charge.
When I use MyWi on my iPhone, I've noticed a huge difference in battery consumption when using the WiFi3G bridge. BT3G is very nice by comparison.
Trolling is a art,
Amazon manages to have free 3g built into the kindle. I would imagine Apple could do the same.
Amazon also has absurdly low data rates that apps written for the Kindle must abide by - 100kb of wireless data PER MONTH. Thats unless you have an app with a monthly fee, then the cap is somewhat higher I believe.
Would you really rather have a platform that forces such limited use of networking resources?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What I would like to see is a non-profit org get created for the sole purpose of acquiring licensed spectrum for long-range packet radio, and to create an open-licensed wireless protocol to use it-- Then release it publicly FOSS style.
Because it would be long distance (1 to 2 miles would be the ideal coverage area for access points I would think.. could be wrong though. That's just a guess.) it would need to prevent abuse as part of the protocol itself, and so I personally would like to see encryption be a requirement for devices to connect-- Not some gutless password based encryption either, I mean PKI-style encryption with issued certificates kind.
One of the neat things about public/private key encryption is that you can theoretically have multiple public keys to a single private key, which could then be independently enforced.
The idea is to replace 802.11x (A, B, G, N) straight up, and to make consumer boxes that serve as access points just like wifi routers. For businesses offering complimentary internet, (who wouldnt want to be a free ISP to everyone within 1-2 miles-- and only offer to paying customers) a simple near-feild communication plate built into the counter at the store could supply a time-leased certificate to the device (think really short range bluetooth), giving it permission to access the AP, which would then get revoked after the time elapses. The ability to have multiple public keys per private key would let this work. The business's AP would keep a "pool" of public certs, and would track their use against unique hardware IDs from the connecting devices. (The AP would check that the cert is valid, then check to see who it was issued to-- If the unique ID does not match, no connection.) This would keep people from being repeat customers at a specific place, and eventually having every cert in the pool pushed to their device over time, and then no longer needing to make a purchase to gain access. It would also prevent people from using what is assumed to be a unique public key at the same time somebody else is, and causing problems. (There would be 2 levels of uniqueness-- Unique public key, and unique device MAC. The AP would check both, and decline connection if either is invalid.)
Certificate checking would be strictly enfoced, but 1:1 correlations between certs and devices would not be, based on how the AP is configured. For people wanting to run "Open" connections, (Equivilent of unprotected wifi), a default certificate set of 1 private key (burned into the AP as part of specification compliance), and 1 public key would be ubiquitous to all devices, and would fascilitate that configuration. The over-air data would still be encrypted, just with this defacto key set. (Useless from a security standpoint because everyone has the keys, but useful from a protocol design standpoint because you can always populate the encryption type feild of the datagram header, even in "open" mode.)
The ideal situation would allow deployment of user-generated key sets right out of the box, built on strong encryption bit depths---
It would be the beginning of the open-mesh network everyone seems to want so badly, myself included.
Given that whitespaces have been enabled for public use, maybe I should order an FPGA kit and cobble together a proof of concept some time...
I really would like to see a non-profit org created to administer a project like this though. Could even use whitespace spectrum instead of licensing dedicated.