I beg to differ with you on the power issue. A typical WiFi card has less output (30mW) than a cell phone (600mW). Thus, a cell phone's power consumption is actually more than the WiFi card.
Nevertheless, your argument is a correct one in some sense in that the power is not properly being managed in laptops. The batteries just don't last too long. That is all being solved by Intel's Banian chip coming out early 2003.
Trane,
Good point. It's my cultural bias as an U:ber-geek that keeps me from understanding this. I just don't understand "cute" or the necessity of "cute" in the same way Japanese do.
I wonder what the North American version of "cute" is?
You are right. I am motivated to read slashdot by fun/leisure. And yes, companies like T-Mobile appeal to their customers through providing fun. And Yes.. fun does motivate people. I don't have a problem with understanding that cell phone users are motivated by fun.
What I find scary is that you can hang your hat on this. But then again, Disney and Vegas rely on this as well.
I think what's scary is that since the recent economic slowdown we have forgotten that fun gets you through the day.
It's probably not high quality enough for the Live at 5 shot... Yet
>Reporting some "right now" activity to Police
Now if the Police would just publish their e-mail address...
>"clueless contractor is out on a job, he sends picture of whatever to the general contractor, gets yelled at for installing the roof shingles upside down, blahblahblah."
I've heard of construction subs using camera phones to communicate with their contractor
>Secure government facilities would have to ban the use of said devices, along the same lines of their ban against the Furby.
yup. They already ban cell phones and cameras. I think that would mean also cellphone/cameras.
>I want to hack the camera on Natalie Portman's phone, *grin.
Now that ought to be fun. I wonder how many of these 3G picture phones will be used as toilet cams or upskirt cams... I also wonder if the government will be able to hack drug dealer phones so that they can get a picture of their suspects
SPRINT reps will do anything to sell you something. Do you really believe this lie? 3G has not even been deployed here in the US yet!! The 3G bands 1.7GHz and 2.1GHz (Advanced Wireless Service) have not even been auctioned off yet!!! SPRINT's "3G" is really a "2.5G" technology 1xRTT on PCS and does not offer any more than GPRS does.
Aaron,
What do you think about being able to access the web from a Starbucks using 802.11 instead? You trade-off convenience of being wherever to having to go to a hotspot. But then you can use the connection at speeds that are as fast as what you get in the office. Is the problem that they are trying to push your cell phone into laptop service?
NineNine,
I guess what is missing is the broadband content downloads that congress keeps talking about being the reason why people have not adopted broadband yet. I can just see it now - LimeWire on your cell phone!!
Another piece of trivia: In Japan, after their 3G launch DoCoMo noticed loads of subscribers interested in the technology followed by a massive drop two months later. Maybe seeing a video conference on your cellphone is not that useful afterall.
Its more like I collapsed the entire industry so that I could afford it. In Europe, the licenses for 3G cost about $24,000 per subscriber.
Here in the US, the 3G auctions have not been held yet. I wonder how many more thousands will lose their jobs so that they can afford this here in the US.
I guess this is like the Airline industry where technology is developing so fast, they don't get to pay for the previous wave of toys. I don't even think the basic 2G deployment of CDMA and GSM are even paid for at this time.
I would think the market for data is lots smaller than the market for voice (10-50x) However, the expenditures on this small market sliver are enormous. Its amazing how CEOs have forgotten everything they learned in bartending school (Evers MCI) I mean business school
The 3G technology has been on engineers desks since about 1996. It takes many years and lots of dollars to bring new technologies to the market. They thought UMTS-2000 would have been here by now. But GPRS and 1xRTT were just deployed just two years ago.
Precisely my point in posting the item. I have to agree with you. There could not have been marketing studies. The standards bodies rushed forward to designing a multi-billion dollar solution for a problem which ends up being to facilitate downloading ringtones and backgrounds.
I really have to ask what problem were they trying to solve initially???
1) Your point of resistance to change is well taken. But people do move from the familiar to something better for example from Black and White TV to Color, 8mm movies to video tape, film to digital pictures... I think the important thing is to solve a problem. For example, what is the reason to upgrade from analog TV to the new digital HDTVs? Does it solve a problem for me? My TV works just fine.
People have the Internet thing solved at home for the most part - it gives them access to the internet at home so they can read e-mails and get on their chat groups. They have not really been given a good enough reason to upgrade.
At home they will ask for access points so that they can use their laptops in the backyard. Except that their laptop does not work everywhere. Hotspots are the attempt to add locations where their laptop will work
2) Maybe you can argue that e-mail is the killer AP for the Internet.
For 3G it seems to be ridiculous stuff like downloading ringtones and backgrounds see http://www.commsdesign.com/news/market_news/OEG200 21127S0042 (it too moves data)
802.11's current WLAN "killer AP" is in schools. The largest number of commercial grade access points is being sold to school districts, not to hotspots. 802.11 allows teachers to bring the computer to where the kids are learning rather than bringing the kids to the computer lab. It's lots less expensive than wiring each and every classroom for computers.
But can 802.11 provide a WWAN "killer AP"? I think hotspots are a definite attempt here.
3) The price of 802.11 gear will come down even further since most all laptops will have 802.11b and 802.11a connections by next year. Intel is providing the chipsets.
4) Yes we need more spectrum, but the right kind of spectrum. We need a band that can traverse through trees and building walls and still have small antennas. Something in the 300 MHz-1000 Mhz band would be ideal.
It so happens that Senators George Allen (R.-Va.) and Barbara Boxer (D.-Ca.) are circulating a draft bill to gain early support in the 108th Congress to promote a wireless approach to broadband deployment. An Allen spokesperson said the bill and accompanying "Dear Colleague" letter are efforts to "get beyond the stalemated debate of cable versus DSL."
The draft legislation calls for the Federal Communications Commission to allocate not less than 255 megahertz of contiguous spectrum below 6 gigahertz for unlicensed use by wireless broadband devices.
I think this would be a good opportunity to contact your repersentatives and back this bill. Ask for shared use of the UHF television band from 470MHz (ch14) to 698 MHz (ch51) under part 15. This is 228 Mhz of contiguous prime beachhead on this very underused band. This band penetrates building walls and trees much better than 2.4 or 5 GHz. And under low power restrictions (such as part 15 ERP limits), can still reach 30 miles.
Why not share that spectrum under part 15 on those channels where no local UHF broadcasts exist? Properly designed equipment that is low power and that limits interference with UHF broadcasters should work well.
This should help tremendously in cutting the cost of getting to the Tier1 Internet. Currently, the TELCOs are still maintaining their cash extraction monopoly by being the middle man to smaller Tier2 and Tier3 ISPs and commercial enterprises.
5) I think you will pretty much always need to have a connection to the Tier1 backbone and that will eventually cost someone somewhere.
6) I'm not sure having a real IP address is a requirement.
The UHF television band goes from 470MHz (ch14) to 698 MHz (ch51). This is 228 Mhz of contiguous prime beachhead on a very underused band. This band penetrates building walls and trees much better than 2.4 or 5 GHz. Why not share it under part 15 on those channels where no local UHF broadcasts exist? TV broadcasters are using ERP's in the kilo and megawatts. Properly designed equipment that is low power that listens before transmitting should not interfere with broadcasters.
The FCC defines BROADBAND:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/broadband.html
This Web site has been designed to answer some of our most frequently asked questions about broadband. While much has been written about broadband lately, many consumers are not sure exactly what it is, what it can do, and what is the potential.
What is Broadband?
Are There Different Types of Broadband?
What are the Advantages of Broadband?
What Are Some of the Options with Broadband?
What is Narrowband?
Test Your Speed.
What is Broadband?
Broadband refers most commonly to a new generation of high-speed transmission services, which allows users to access the Internet and Internet-related services at significantly higher speeds than traditional modems. It has the potential technical capability to meet consumers' broad communication, entertainment, information, and commercial needs and desires.
Are There Different Types of Broadband?
There are several types of broadband services:
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)
Cable Modem
Wireless Internet
Satellite
802.11g uses OFDM which has 52 subcarriers instead of a single carrier to send the data across the link. Since there is a proposed overlap of 7 mhz (ch1 and 4 for example overlap from 2416 MHz to 2423 MHz) on each side, more than 15 subcarriers will be jammed on each side. So for the middle channels (4 and 8), more than 30 of the 54 channels can be jammed.
Since the subcarriers are carrying redundant information, you will lose either throughput or its ability to fight multipath (or both).
My house is fed from a pole-peg transformer which is split into two 110v feeds. You get 220V by tapping across the two 110v circuits for the dryer, the oven and stove. If you connect the HomePlug device to one of the two 110v sides of the pole peg transformer, does it work on the other 110v circuit?
Slashdot Mirror
Is T-Mobile out on a limb trying to mainstream WiFi? They are in over 2000 Starbucks, in loads of Airports and moving into Border stores...
I beg to differ with you on the power issue. A typical WiFi card has less output (30mW) than a cell phone (600mW). Thus, a cell phone's power consumption is actually more than the WiFi card.
Nevertheless, your argument is a correct one in some sense in that the power is not properly being managed in laptops. The batteries just don't last too long. That is all being solved by Intel's Banian chip coming out early 2003.
Trane, Good point. It's my cultural bias as an U:ber-geek that keeps me from understanding this. I just don't understand "cute" or the necessity of "cute" in the same way Japanese do. I wonder what the North American version of "cute" is?
You are right. I am motivated to read slashdot by fun/leisure. And yes, companies like T-Mobile appeal to their customers through providing fun. And Yes .. fun does motivate people. I don't have a problem with understanding that cell phone users are motivated by fun.
What I find scary is that you can hang your hat on this. But then again, Disney and Vegas rely on this as well.
I think what's scary is that since the recent economic slowdown we have forgotten that fun gets you through the day.
>Medical remote viewing, News Reporting
It's probably not high quality enough for the Live at 5 shot... Yet
>Reporting some "right now" activity to Police
Now if the Police would just publish their e-mail address...
>"clueless contractor is out on a job, he sends picture of whatever to the general contractor, gets yelled at for installing the roof shingles upside down, blahblahblah."
I've heard of construction subs using camera phones to communicate with their contractor
>Secure government facilities would have to ban the use of said devices, along the same lines of their ban against the Furby.
yup. They already ban cell phones and cameras. I think that would mean also cellphone/cameras.
>I want to hack the camera on Natalie Portman's phone, *grin.
Now that ought to be fun. I wonder how many of these 3G picture phones will be used as toilet cams or upskirt cams... I also wonder if the government will be able to hack drug dealer phones so that they can get a picture of their suspects
SPRINT reps will do anything to sell you something. Do you really believe this lie? 3G has not even been deployed here in the US yet!! The 3G bands 1.7GHz and 2.1GHz (Advanced Wireless Service) have not even been auctioned off yet!!! SPRINT's "3G" is really a "2.5G" technology 1xRTT on PCS and does not offer any more than GPRS does.
Aaron, What do you think about being able to access the web from a Starbucks using 802.11 instead? You trade-off convenience of being wherever to having to go to a hotspot. But then you can use the connection at speeds that are as fast as what you get in the office. Is the problem that they are trying to push your cell phone into laptop service?
NineNine, I guess what is missing is the broadband content downloads that congress keeps talking about being the reason why people have not adopted broadband yet. I can just see it now - LimeWire on your cell phone!!
Another piece of trivia: In Japan, after their 3G launch DoCoMo noticed loads of subscribers interested in the technology followed by a massive drop two months later. Maybe seeing a video conference on your cellphone is not that useful afterall.
Its more like I collapsed the entire industry so that I could afford it. In Europe, the licenses for 3G cost about $24,000 per subscriber. Here in the US, the 3G auctions have not been held yet. I wonder how many more thousands will lose their jobs so that they can afford this here in the US.
I guess this is like the Airline industry where technology is developing so fast, they don't get to pay for the previous wave of toys. I don't even think the basic 2G deployment of CDMA and GSM are even paid for at this time. I would think the market for data is lots smaller than the market for voice (10-50x) However, the expenditures on this small market sliver are enormous. Its amazing how CEOs have forgotten everything they learned in bartending school (Evers MCI) I mean business school
The 3G technology has been on engineers desks since about 1996. It takes many years and lots of dollars to bring new technologies to the market. They thought UMTS-2000 would have been here by now. But GPRS and 1xRTT were just deployed just two years ago.
Precisely my point in posting the item. I have to agree with you. There could not have been marketing studies. The standards bodies rushed forward to designing a multi-billion dollar solution for a problem which ends up being to facilitate downloading ringtones and backgrounds. I really have to ask what problem were they trying to solve initially???
1) Your point of resistance to change is well taken. But people do move from the familiar to something better for example from Black and White TV to Color, 8mm movies to video tape, film to digital pictures... I think the important thing is to solve a problem. For example, what is the reason to upgrade from analog TV to the new digital HDTVs? Does it solve a problem for me? My TV works just fine. People have the Internet thing solved at home for the most part - it gives them access to the internet at home so they can read e-mails and get on their chat groups. They have not really been given a good enough reason to upgrade. At home they will ask for access points so that they can use their laptops in the backyard. Except that their laptop does not work everywhere. Hotspots are the attempt to add locations where their laptop will work 2) Maybe you can argue that e-mail is the killer AP for the Internet. For 3G it seems to be ridiculous stuff like downloading ringtones and backgrounds see http://www.commsdesign.com/news/market_news/OEG200 21127S0042 (it too moves data)
802.11's current WLAN "killer AP" is in schools. The largest number of commercial grade access points is being sold to school districts, not to hotspots. 802.11 allows teachers to bring the computer to where the kids are learning rather than bringing the kids to the computer lab. It's lots less expensive than wiring each and every classroom for computers.
But can 802.11 provide a WWAN "killer AP"? I think hotspots are a definite attempt here.
3) The price of 802.11 gear will come down even further since most all laptops will have 802.11b and 802.11a connections by next year. Intel is providing the chipsets.
4) Yes we need more spectrum, but the right kind of spectrum. We need a band that can traverse through trees and building walls and still have small antennas. Something in the 300 MHz-1000 Mhz band would be ideal.
It so happens that Senators George Allen (R.-Va.) and Barbara Boxer (D.-Ca.) are circulating a draft bill to gain early support in the 108th Congress to promote a wireless approach to broadband deployment. An Allen spokesperson said the bill and accompanying "Dear Colleague" letter are efforts to "get beyond the stalemated debate of cable versus DSL."
The draft legislation calls for the Federal Communications Commission to allocate not less than 255 megahertz of contiguous spectrum below 6 gigahertz for unlicensed use by wireless broadband devices.
I think this would be a good opportunity to contact your repersentatives and back this bill. Ask for shared use of the UHF television band from 470MHz (ch14) to 698 MHz (ch51) under part 15. This is 228 Mhz of contiguous prime beachhead on this very underused band. This band penetrates building walls and trees much better than 2.4 or 5 GHz. And under low power restrictions (such as part 15 ERP limits), can still reach 30 miles.
Why not share that spectrum under part 15 on those channels where no local UHF broadcasts exist? Properly designed equipment that is low power and that limits interference with UHF broadcasters should work well.
This should help tremendously in cutting the cost of getting to the Tier1 Internet. Currently, the TELCOs are still maintaining their cash extraction monopoly by being the middle man to smaller Tier2 and Tier3 ISPs and commercial enterprises.
5) I think you will pretty much always need to have a connection to the Tier1 backbone and that will eventually cost someone somewhere.
6) I'm not sure having a real IP address is a requirement.
The UHF television band goes from 470MHz (ch14) to 698 MHz (ch51). This is 228 Mhz of contiguous prime beachhead on a very underused band. This band penetrates building walls and trees much better than 2.4 or 5 GHz. Why not share it under part 15 on those channels where no local UHF broadcasts exist? TV broadcasters are using ERP's in the kilo and megawatts. Properly designed equipment that is low power that listens before transmitting should not interfere with broadcasters.
The FCC defines BROADBAND: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/broadband.html This Web site has been designed to answer some of our most frequently asked questions about broadband. While much has been written about broadband lately, many consumers are not sure exactly what it is, what it can do, and what is the potential. What is Broadband? Are There Different Types of Broadband? What are the Advantages of Broadband? What Are Some of the Options with Broadband? What is Narrowband? Test Your Speed. What is Broadband? Broadband refers most commonly to a new generation of high-speed transmission services, which allows users to access the Internet and Internet-related services at significantly higher speeds than traditional modems. It has the potential technical capability to meet consumers' broad communication, entertainment, information, and commercial needs and desires. Are There Different Types of Broadband? There are several types of broadband services: Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Cable Modem Wireless Internet Satellite
802.11g uses OFDM which has 52 subcarriers instead of a single carrier to send the data across the link. Since there is a proposed overlap of 7 mhz (ch1 and 4 for example overlap from 2416 MHz to 2423 MHz) on each side, more than 15 subcarriers will be jammed on each side. So for the middle channels (4 and 8), more than 30 of the 54 channels can be jammed. Since the subcarriers are carrying redundant information, you will lose either throughput or its ability to fight multipath (or both).
My house is fed from a pole-peg transformer which is split into two 110v feeds. You get 220V by tapping across the two 110v circuits for the dryer, the oven and stove. If you connect the HomePlug device to one of the two 110v sides of the pole peg transformer, does it work on the other 110v circuit?
Neither are the jokes from aunt Sarah
4.3 miles is 6.9 Kilometers. (4.3 x 1.6)