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The Internet Taxi That Couldn't Connect
Ant sent in the link to this Salon story about a ride in one of Yahoo's 10 San Francisco Internet Taxis - and how the driver couldn't get the modem to work. I sure hope I have better luck with the wireless modem and ISP I'm getting for the (Linux) laptop I carry around in my limousine. Has anyone else got Linux running on any of the wireless ISPs yet? Got any hints or tips you'd care to share with the rest of us?
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I'm afraid not. I've used the Ricochet before, and just like a cellular phone, the bandwidth you get is highly dependent upon local coverage. If you are on the outer-edge of the maximal distance from a transceiver, you get poor bandwidth, aggravated by poor latency. It's quite easy to get less than 28.8K bandwidth.
Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
I used Ricochet over PPP without any problems both on a desktop and a laptop. Now I use DSL and a wireless LAN in my house instead. Doesn't go as far but until the 128k speeds come out I wouldn't bother getting ricochet.
I use a Sierra Wireless Aircard 210 combo for my CDPD. goAmerica provides me with service. $70/month for unlimited CDPD access nationwide. Linux runs great on my Thinkpad 560E. Sierra Wireless was VERY supportive in my efforts to get their AirCard 210 working with Linux. Although they don't officially support it, they do link to my page on how I got my Aircard to work. CDPD is only 19.2k and better for bursty traffic...it's still damn kewl and wireless!! I do believe they are working on making CDPD faster as well.
You're making it sound like that was ages ago. That couldn't have been more than like 4 years ago! You're making me feel old. ;-) 33.6k modems. Geez.. in our day 2400bps was absolutely fabulous for transferring large amounts of warez. Massive 760k games like Lost Vikings. We need Lost Vikings for Linux!
Are these things encrypted in any way? You should be using ssh instead of telnet. Help stamp out telnet across the Internet! If you're doing any type of interactive sessions they should always be encrypted.
Ricochet is great if you live in Seattle, SF or DC. Some parts of NYC too I think. Works fine with Linux. There ARE problems however... Here in DC the service is almost unusable in several downtown areas. Apparently there are lots of users (like where I live) sharing the limited bandwidth of the relay trancievers. I'm lucky to get 10Kbaud at home. So test Ricochet out before you signup. Note that Ricochet has done nothing to resolve this problem for almost a year. They complain that they are restricted by the local utility co. They promise 28kb (modem like) performance....HA!! I smell class action.
Ricochet works well. I've had mine for three years of constant use now, and had only one two-hour period of downtime in that entire time. It's actually the most reliable access I've had in the Bay Area. Every time my PacBell DSL goes out (weekly or daily occurrence depending on my karma), my Ricochet keeps my CVS reporitories connected...
Only one gotcha- some of the PPP endpoints on the Metricom side don't seem to play nicely with Linux's concept of compressed headers. Don't use them and you'll be all set.
Monty
I got my Novatel Merlin from Bell Atlantic about a week ago. It came with a static IP.
And an AUP that says I promise I won't run a server or webcam over it. I needed to boot
into windows to configure the card. Once. In the beginning. After I configured its IP,
provider, etc, I rebooted into linux and configured my laptop to dial 10.0.0.1 (per the docs)
and set it to start speaking ppp without additional auth. It worked the first time I tried it
Latency is high (600-1200ms) Packet loss gets high if the cell signal is weak. But generally,
I'm quite happy. If anyone is trying to get a novatel merlin working with their *nix box, feel
free to drop me a line.
oh. ricochet. I had ricochet when i spent a year in seattle. Ricochet is faster than CDPD
and boy does it make a difference. ricochet is much better suited to interactive sessions.
But there's a whole lot more cdpd coverage out there.
jesse @ fsck.com
The 4mph speed limit is not a problem with San Francisco downtown traffic ;-)
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Network Administrator
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
I guess. No idea though... You can find more info buried somewhere in techsightings.com (Roblimo's very own /.alike)
I see some incorrect information posted on the way wirless connectivity works so I thought I'd go ahead and do an overview for those that don't know it. Wireless connectivity is basically separated into 2 areas, highspeed and lowspeed. The high speed, those that advertise wireless t1's and such are very localized, usually covering a city at a time. A lot of the time, they have their towers strapped to the tops of telephone poles and streetlights. They are, though, very fast. The low speed is again separated into a few catagories, CDPD and BSWD. CDPD is "Cellular Digital Packet Data" and is basically packet digital over analog. It's what the Novatel Minstril. It runs at 19.2 and is full tcp/ip, and you get a static IP address. BSWD is the "Bell South Wireless Data" Network. It runs at 9.6, a little slower than CDPD, but it has better coverage. The real kicker is that this is not native tcp/ip. It runs on something called mobitex which needs to be proxied by some special software (which BS calls a Mobigate). This is what the palm 7 runs on. If you get a Palm 7, don't expect to do anything besides email and web on it. There are a few other ones such as Ardis (now owned by AMSC) and CDMA, but Ardis has few devices being producted for it and CDMA hasn't rolled out yet. The only place that I know of that sells service on most of the national networks is GoAmerica Communications. It has quite a few different devices on the web page, if you want to know what supports what. Cheers, mike@illuminatus..org
I used to run my Ricochet under Linux on a Toshiba laptop all the time at my previous job. Worked like a charm. It's just straight PPP with a special dial string (the one I used was "777**ppp"). The other really nice thing about it was that we had telephone modem access. So I could use the Ricochet to access a real phone line on the other side and dial out to other networks, like the private corporate network.
Used it on my PalmPilot as well, when I wasn't on the laptop. Sure made things nice. I used to get paged about some stupid system problem, and use the Pilot/Ricochet combo to dial in, telnet to the offending Unix system, and do what I needed to do. All without carting a laptop around.
Oh, and I never really found Ricochet to be slow. One thing you have to remember is that default install says to use 28.8 or 33.6. However, if you set it for 56K, it happily operates somewhere between 33.6 and 56K. Not that this is really going to matter very soon. Metricom (the people who bring us Ricochet) has gotten their 128K network out of beta testing and are starting to deploy it now. Just imagine, wireless Internet access at ISDN speeds.
It's top on my Christmas list *g*
-Todd
---
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Although it is possible to exchange one for the other, it is equally very possible to increase both. Case in point, DSL lines have 6-30ms latency, while a modem has 200-500ms latency.
With or without functioning modems, it's still nearly impossible to get a taxi in a bad neighborhood (like mine) of San Francisco. This is a social justice issue! ;-p
Well, of course the taxi will need an IT department, its own help desk, a system administrator, a network engineer, and a CIO. Maybe they should be using busses instead.- ------------------
---------------------------------------
I have a good friend who's been using a Ricochet and .. i forget which ISP all over Silicon Valley.. although it was used mainly on Win98 since he hadn't gotten the Linux support for it figgered out yet..
-- "This is my sig... there are many like it but this one is mine"
In theory, Ricochet should work just peachy, although I've never tried it...
It connects to a serial port, and "looks like" a modem... All you need is PPP software... Even the Palm Pilot supports it (with an adaptor for the cable...)
http://www.ricochet.net
The biggest drawbacks being performance (about 33.6K on a good day, although they promise 128K soon...) and availability... Only certain areas (like the bay area) support it...
Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
You and your high school buddies had cell phones?
Sheesh...
You shouldn't be surprised though... Analog cell phones just have really pathetic potential bandwidth... The fastest I've ever seen anyone claim is 9600BPS under optimal conditions... That was the Nokia 9000 cell phone/PDA unit...
I'm not sure how the various digital standards hold up though... Or satelite...
Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
I'm waiting with baited breath for Teledesic myself.
FWIW, Sprint PCS phones now have the ability to connect to the Internet. FWIU, you can either surf on the little screen that's on them (I can't see how this is useful really myself, except for maybe sports scores or stock tickers), but you can also plug these things into a laptop's serial port. I believe these things use PPP, but I could be mistaken.
My journal has hot
The whole idea seems silly to me. One would think that anyone who was so concerned at being out of touch that they'd want an internet connection for a cab ride would have a wireless modem already.
How long is the average cab ride? It just doesn't seem like it would be long enough to justify wasting money on this thing. It is like all those airport kiosks. If you are going to habitually spend $2/hour for connectivity, just buy that damn wireless modem?
The cake is a pie
i just have one offtopic question. do you guys really have limos?
and if you dont you should!
tyler
Yup... works just great on a linux laptop. As said above, just like a standard modem with PPP but a bit slow.
:)
I have two friends using them on their laptops and they are quite happy... even with the speed limitations.
Just don't try to do Xforwarding!
At one time, I was using a US Robotics/Megahertz 33.6 modem with cellular uplink. It sucked pretty hardcore, I could only count on connections of around 2400-4800 baud... just enough to check email, and that's about it. The only time I ever had it working, though, turned out to lead my high school buddies and I to a fun tradition... we used to climb the local lookout tower on very clear nights and have parties up there with our laptops and cell-modems... ahh, the memories. ;-)
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
The Richochet modems work fine under Linux. It acts just like a normal modem. Dial 777 and it connects in a just a few seconds.
It's very stable and there are no timeouts. I recommend them. In fact, I'm about to get another one instead of a second phone line and a modem, while I hold out for some sort of fast internet access. Much cheaper over the course of a year.
They can be pretty slow if you're in a crowded area, though.
The Math Maestro Tutoring Services in Seattle
It's all right. It's extremely slow (~28.8), but I like being able to just leave the connection up. In fact, my primary use of my home PC these days is via telnet, from work.
I had a problem getting it to work, due to some incompatibility between the Linux and Solaris ppp daemons. I fixed it by using the "novj" pppd option.
Remus, why must ya' do dese wahtahmelluns? Don't ya' know dat off topic posts must be punished?
But Iz Gotz too
It's probably because of the difficulty of acquiring a new relay every second or two, like cellphones in planes. (As for the taxis, law enforcement would help, but not in Willie Brown's city.)
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
I've been contemplating the same thing for a while, as my DSL reliability has been in the toilet. Can the rest of the net still find you when the DSL is out? If so, are you doing anything fancy with the routing or just relying on DNS to do the trick?
--mkb
I've used Ricochet's wireless service with Linux with no problems. The ppp config is pretty simple with nothing special required. I just have it connect at boot up time and stay connected since Ricochet has no airtime charges.
/. so far doesn't deem worthy of a news item, see www.onhandpc.com
If you're located in an area with Ricochet coverage, then it's a fabulous deal. It's the only IP connectivity I use from home since it's as fast as a modem, doesn't require a phone line, and I can keep it connected all the time.
Ricochet is certainly in the running for the most cool geek service available.
G.
P.S. For a new geek toy that
This is as yet unproven, but I have heard that the ricochet modem will not work in a moving vehicle. This is because it must aquire the signal and keep it steady and synchronized.. if you drive more than 5 mph you will lose it immediately.. Otherwise you will lose it every block or so. Either way.. You are screwed. Last Warrior
Why do Slashdot "editors" that can't really edit ride around in limos with wireless modems?
It's easy to do , depending on the ISP equipment. I'm in
Lagos Nigeria right now working on a wireless ISP setup.
We're using equipment from Hybrid. The client 'modem'
connects to your computer via ethernet- if your computer talks TCP/IP and has an Ethernet port, you
can use this equipment.
Hybrid makes 'wireless cable modems' that use MMDS cable systems to
provide Internet access.
Robbie
-- Comtrends!
That would be the driver.
I looked up this problem on the AOL members' help area, and the guide seemed to think that the modem was out of bits. He said if the taxi driver takes the modem back to the office and refills the bits, everything should work okay.
AOL is always right, give it a shot.
Dan "there goes the karma" Turk
When I lived in Fairfax City, the Richochet worked great with linux, I had it hooked up in my old apartment as our ONLY internet access. Just used IPMasq and private ip's. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world, but it was pretty darned reliable. It does not work in Springfield (A few miles south) and did not work in Centreville (a few miles west). The coverage can be rated as splotchy at best. I think that inside the beltway it worked just fine.
/. poster #104543567
-stax
thanks.. and I don't care if you're off topic..
*wink, wink*
-- "This is my sig... there are many like it but this one is mine"
Ricochets don't work when moveing faster the 5mph. There are not supposed to! What twit cam up with this idea to put them in moveing taxis.
....
If you are in a Ricochet Area (Bay Area, Seattle, or the capital beltway- Northern VA, Maryland or DC) Ricochet is a fantastic mobile access tool. I have been using it for about 1-1/2 years now, and I am holding on for the near deployment of 128K access. Right now, unless you are in the test market in San Fran. the access is 28.8 but it is always 28.8. solid. I run an entire network wireless and I'm using that link now. Have a ricochet and want to try it under a decent operating system? Try this:
/etc/resolv.conf, as they are not assigned/distributed by the network.
1) Connect ricochet to a serial port (here, COM1 under DOS/winblows)
2) Turn the ricochet on.
3) Type or execute as a script this line:
pppd -d connect 'chat -t 20 -v ABORT BUSY REPORT CONNECT "" ATDT777 CONNECT ""'/dev/ttyS0 115200 modem noipdefault defaultroute crtscts
4) find a command line and type: "netscape http://www.slashdot.org/&"
This assumes that you have pppd support in your kernel and that you have chat and pppd installed. The modem speed option is there, but you get 28.8. So dont complain about my cmd line. This line also assumes you have some DNS servers in your
Have fun surfing.....I do....at the sushi bar...at the mall....on road trips.....on the metro (above ground) Where ever I am.
PS. I use the SE. Battery life is ~4.5 hours each, the batteries are 2"x1.5"x 1/8th". I carry five.
What's next? A terminal at every urinal? Is there really a need for this? Whatever happened to enjoying a nice drive for the drive's sake?
In any case, does anyone know how this is being paid for? I understand that Yahoo! contracted to put them in, but how are they making money? Or is this an 'advertising' expense? Seems to me that this could hemorrhage money. Cellular costs, initial equipment outlay, maintenance (cabs usually aren't that clean...), theft... the list goes on.
I was trying to get an old 486 IBM PS1 online yesterday without much luck.
The user is blind, and all her adaptive equipment works with DOS and WIN 3.1. Since it would cost thousands to get her adaptive equipment for a win 98 machine, it looks like I only have win3.1 to work with or possibly Linux with wine.
She has an old zoom modem running at 14.4 or 33.6 and Trumpet winsock version 3.0. (her talking browser requires a winsock). Since she has 8 meg of ram memory shouldn't be a problem.
She has no problem dialing up her shell account and getting her Email.
The trumpet winsock has no problem connecting to the ip, but as soon as she trys to bring up her browser the service provider claims her ping counts go out of sight and the browser reports that the network is down. I tried using an old version 3 netscape browser with the same result.
This setup used to work fine a few years ago, do the service providers have hardware that is less tolerant of old socks or what?
I've also written a discussion of different wireless access methods. In short, CDPD is a more widely available solution than the Ricochet and also works while the vehicle is moving. Ricochet is faster and more reliable if you can get service.
-- http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/
No problem. Got my Sierra Wireless MP200 CDPD modem working without a glitch. It uses a serial port and SLIP.. you connect it it, do "ATD123" (any telephone number will do, it ignores it), start up SLIP, and blammo! On the net. Aren't I cool?
Except the modem itself isn't too portable. It's a 3 watt beast the size of a small toaster that's installed under the back seat of my Cherokee. (One of the perks for working at a telco).
_______
2B1ASK1
I have an old Sage wireless modem that I use on win95/98, Linux, and my Palm Pilot, using GoAmerica as an ISP. It works amazingly well on all 3 platforms, if a bit slow at times. Both Novatel Wireless and GoAmerica were quite helpful with getting me the (simple) configuration information I needed to set up the modem for linux and the palm, even though they didn't officially support either (they only supported official palm wireless devices, which didn't exist at the time for my palm V). What's very cool about GoAmerica is you get a static IP... so whenever your modem is connected to your linux box, you (can) have access from the internet. Having someone telnet in to you over a wireless link for the first time is quite exciting.
I use a Ricochet modem on my server at home in Alexandria, Fairfax County, VA. It's my only connection to the Internet. Sometimes I get nearly 28.8K out of it. Other times it's much slower. Overall, I'm happy with the service although I wish that its interactive performance was better. It's unusable for telnet. In spite of the sometimes slow connections, I'm running a couple of services over the radio link. Visit Madison to play with my NetBSD port of Alan Cox's Linux Portaloo and also Ben Reser's Echelon Armor thingie which I swiped from here. I'm running an OpenVerse server on madison.dynip.com:7000 and a dopewars server on the default dopewars port. Feel free to try any of them. I don't advertise, so I don't get lot of traffic. Don't be surprised if the connection is slow!
I've also used the modem on my NetBSD-running Sony PCG-505 laptop. I've used it to listen to WPFW in DC and WWOZ in New Orleans using RealAudio. In fact, Frank Ahrens of the Washington Post wrote about my experience in an article on the future of radio. It appeared on January 21, 1999. Depending on network congestion, it acutally sounds OK. In the article, I think I said the sound was "like a cheap transistor radio". Mr. Ahren's editor cut out the qualification that that was a weakness of the small Sony speakers I used rather than the streaming audio technology or the wireless modem.
A recent announcement from Metricom promised 128K service in 12 markets by summer 2000.
At first glance, i thought he was saying that the drivers didn't work with the modem... think "winmodem in linux" :-) lol
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
I have a Ricochet modem, and it works fine with Linux. (In fact, it works fine with just about anything, since it connects to a serial port and emulates a Hayes-compatible modem. You give it "ATDT777" and it gives you a PPP handshake back.)
However, Ricochet's microcellular network architecture, while it has many advantages, means that your packets must travel many "hops" to get to a wired network access point. This makes latency terrible, even compared to analog modems. (I often see 1000ms ping times, and TCP connections frequently lag.) This won't bother a Web surfer as much, but it makes ssh connections painful at best.
Furthermore, Ricochet usually works extremely poorly from a moving vehicle. They have a small cell size, low-power transmitters, multipath issues, and take a little while to perform handoff. Unless you have a really unobstructed view, a Ricochet will more or less stop working above 30mph. This made me wonder how they would ever get it to work in a taxicab.
Now, Ricochet supposedly has a next-generation system, Ricochet2, in development/testing that will yield higher bandwidth (and hopefully lower latency). I don't know if it will support operation at speed, or much of anything else about it.
It sounds like Roblimo plans to get a CDPD modem, which uses a completely different technology (using the digital cellular network). I've never used CDPD, but it should have coverage and velocity characteristics similar to cellular phones. Unlike Ricochet, compatibility may prove more difficult. I've never actually seen a CDPD modem in operation, though, so I can't say for sure.
(CDPD also has much better coverage than Ricochet.)