42% of Worldwide Households Expected To Have Wi-Fi By 2016

retroworks writes "'Wi-Fi network use will nearly double in homes around the world come 2016, according to new Strategy Analytics research. Already used in some 439 million households worldwide, equivalent to 25% of all households, Wi-Fi home network penetration will expand to 42%.' The report says China already has the highest home Wi-Fi use."

Comments

Channel Crowding

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope there appears some solution to the channel crowding already extant with so many home wireless networks. With only channels 1-11 available, and those overlapping with each other, it's already difficult to try to find a clear niche of spectrum. I live in a rural town about 30 miles from the nearest major metropolitan area, and still I count around 15 wireless networks within detectable range.

Basically, it's all just too crowded.

Either the FCC needs to open up some more surrounding spectrum to use, 5ghz networks need to pick up in popularity, or some other technology needs to become available.

Re:Channel Crowding

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It would certainly be nice for the FCC to cut out some more spectrum, I'd say that WiFi has proven to be of enormous value despite living in the wireless war zone that is 2.4GHz, and is amply deserving of more.

In the meantime(and/or forever, since it seems to be an accepted truth that any available spectrum is either the god-given right of legacy broadcasters or must be sweethearted to a cellular Telco as quickly as possible lest the terrorists win) it would be nice for access points to 'back off' more intelligently.

A limited number of AP deployments are actually looking for maximum range. The rest only actually want enough range to handle the X devices in the household; and any spillover is useless or worse. It would be useful for the client and the access point to be able to exchange information with each other on signal quality, and settle on minimum levels needed for the distance and speed required.

Re:Channel Crowding

[AngryDeuce]

I wish I had mod points for you, I really do...

In my apartment, there are literally 30+ networks within range at all times, and to make matter worse, they channel surf up and down the band constantly. It didn't matter what channel you picked, if it was clear enough to be attractive, within a few minutes there would be a handful of other networks camped on top of yours as they constantly searched for clean channels.

I ended up having to go completely hard-lined because I couldn't even pull down 5 meg on a wireless-N connection 15 feet from the router, so now I've got wires across my ceilings and around doorways and shit all over my apartment, but at least I can pull down the 30 meg service I'm paying for. I just did a quick search with the Wifi scanner app on my phone just now and there are 12 networks parked on channel 5, 7 on channel 7, and the rest are just sitting here chasing each other up the band as I watch in real-time.

There needs to be a better way for routers to communicate with each other when they are within interference range and negotiate channel assignments because it's only going to get worse as more phones and shit come out with built in hotspots of their own, not to mention automobiles out in front of the damn building as well competing for spectrum.

It's below 42% right now???

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't visited anyone without wifi in over a decade.

Sudden realization of selection bias...happens so much to us nerds :)

Re:It's below 42% right now???

[Trepidity]

I don't think it's nerds so much as location: you will see different wifi prevalence in, say, the United States versus Uganda.

Re:I switched to UTP a year ago

[vux984]

It requires some work to set up but you only have to do it once.

Of course you look like an idiot wandering around the house with your tablet and a 50' cable... assuming you can find a tablet that has a jack to plug it into.

I agree wired is best, but for a lot of stuff wired makes no sense, or isn't even an option. I don't want to use a cable when using my laptop on the kitchen table, or out in the balcony on a sunny day, or the living room couch... and we have several devices that are wifi only:

iPhone (sure I could use 3G when at home but that's slower)
Blackberry (doesn't actually have a data plan at the moment)
2x Nintendo 3DS

Re:I switched to UTP a year ago

[Hentes]

Hundreds? Cable is very cheap, it only cost me about 10$. And the big problem with wifi that it does not work out of the box, you have to configure it for every computer and OS you have, and repeat the process after every big update, and if there are no problems it works. Also, you forgot to include the cost of the adapters, which more than doubles the cost.

But but but...

[SIR_Taco]

But there are people that are allergic to WiFi signals!
Almost half the households in the world having WiFi will cause all these people to leave populated areas and seek refuge in remote areas!

Nothing but good could come of this :)

Re:But but but...

[symbolset]

There are magnetic shielding bracelets that protect you from toxic wifi signals.

Re:But but but...

[houghi]

They only protect the bloodstream. What you need is a metalic hat protector made from a very thin strip of tin. http://s.houghi.org/xs2t4f.png

Ad Hoc Mesh Networks

[Phoenix666]

If wifi does hit this density, does it make ad-hoc mesh networks a reasonable alternative using a protocol like B.A.T.M.A.N.? The throughput would be nowhere near the fat pipes of big fiber, and the latency would be killer, but it would be extremely difficult for the government to shutdown.

38 to 40 percent will be

[FudRucker]

left with the default password on their wifi routers and allowing wifi admin access making them great fun for wardrivers

Re:Worldwide???

[Trepidity]

The international energy agency estimates that 80.5% of households worldwide have electricity. I don't think half of those having Wifi is completely implausible.

Re:I switched to UTP a year ago

[ceoyoyo]

"And the big problem with wifi that it does not work out of the box, you have to configure it for every computer and OS you have, and repeat the process after every big update, and if there are no problems it works."

Or you could use a real operating system. I configured my wifi router exactly once, and that was to enable security. Any new machine, including anybody who visits, needs the SSID and password. That's it.

Have you actually used wifi since the 90s?

Re:Posted from my neighbor's network

[Anonymous Coward]

And the remaining 10% who can't do subtraction.

Re:Overrated

[foniksonik]

Wired is overrated. Too much hardware to maintain too many bad plugs, wires all over, fixed locations, etc. The speed isn't used, nor the bandwidth.

My AppleTV is wired. That's it. I only have a 20 MB/sec plan so N is fast enough for 2-3 devices at a time and doesn't saturate with a single device pulling torrents down.

Also anecdotally I've rarely had the issues you mention. Quickly remedied with a channel change or power cycle.

On the bonus side my printer is in a room on its own, no PC hanging off and no network port required. I can print from my phone and pick up the print at my leisure. It's nice.