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 :)

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.