Entries tagged as ‘wi-fi’
IT Week had an article yesterday hightlighting the results of a survey that indicated Wi-Fi hot spots in London cannot currently support more than one Voice over Internet (VoIP) call at a time. Considering some of my own experiences at hotspots in the UK (and Ireland) this doesn’t surprise me.
The company said that this leaves the majority of hotspots in the UK unable to support the predicted boom in wireless VoIP services, exposing users to patchy, failed or dropped calls.
…
Schenkel said the underlying reason for the problems could be down to a lack of familiarity or understanding on the part of the coffee shop or pub offering the wireless connectivity.
My experience with slow Wi-Fi was not limited to independent hot spots in cafes or elsewhere. BT OpenZone’s service in BT Centre (the headquarters of the company!) of all places offered really poor service, as they did at my hotel and other places around the city. T-Mobile, which offers Wi-Fi at UK Starbucks locations also provided really awful throughput. In many of these instances I could not establish a VPN connection with my corporate network, and could usually only get to use the web at dial-up speeds if at all.
The UK and Ireland really stood out for me in terms of poor Wi-Fi connectivity. The fact that it was an almost universal experience was somewhat odd, and UK hotstpots compared very poorly to the fast Wi-Fi access available in the rest of Western Europe.
Oh, did I mention that the Wi-Fi was significantly more expensive in the UK? Until the UK Wi-FI price and performance picture improves there’s no way VoIP via commercial Wi-Fi is going to take off.
Technorati Tags: Wi-Fi
Categories: Technology
Tagged: wi-fi
According to this piece in the Washington Post, Google are planning a Wi-Fi service. The article itself comes to the Post from Reuters, and I think the title extrapolates a bit based on Googles offering of a Wi-Fi VPN client. I havent seen the software myself yet, so Im not entirely sure about all the details. However, offering a secure client access VPN software is a far cry away from rolling out your own Wi-Fi access service.
What I think Google might be doing is actually in-line with their business plan. The Wi-Fi user logs in (and pays, if need be) to the Wi-Fi service at the local coffee shop, airport lounge or wherever. The user then fires up the VPN software and is good to go for secure browsing over inherently insecure Wi-Fi. No doubt the security client is going to deliver localized advertising in exchange for the security service. The user gets secure connectivity and Google gets to serve up localized ads. Provided you trust Google as the secure VPN provider for your now-encrypted traffic, thats not a bad deal.
Theres also been a lot of talk, and Ive posted about it before, that Google are building a dark fiber network as the basis for their own Internet backbone. Engadget has a bit more on the topic, and some people extrapolated from that backbone build the fact that Google would build their Wi-Fi service. The two projects are actually tangential, but perhaps not entirely unrelated. One way for Google to cut expenses once their Secure VPN client goes on-line is to carry as much traffic on their own network as possible in order to avoid charges from existing Internet backbone providers. They can even make arrangements with T-Mobile and the other large Wi-Fi providers to link up directly to the Internet backbone theyre using. This saves Google a lot of cash and enables them to deliver better performance to the end users.
But Google offering up free Wi-Fi on some nationwide or global basis is a long ways away. Everybody getting hyped about Google offering free Wi-Fi access needs to keep in mind that in order to do that Google would need to install thousands upon thousands of Wi-Fi access points at venues throughout the country. They would have to deal with each individual venue owner to negotiate even plugging the thing in on their premises. They would then need to deal with DSL or cable broadband or even T-1 circuits to EACH of those locations in order to link it back to a backbone, and only then would it touch this network Google are evidently building. Having their own Internet backbone does NOT help them avoid this pain not one bit. I find it extremely hard to believe Google are going to take the time and expense to do this. More than likely well continue to get our Wi-Fi from the same companies providing Wi-Fi today.
Engadget’s screen shots seem to indicate that one actually needs to be at a Google-provided hotspot to make thr Google Secure VPN work. If that is truly the case then the utility of this offering is going to be very limited. There’s just no way Google are going to go through the pain of rolling out thousands and thousands of hotspots. Why would they with the large and growing installed base of hotspots already out there? Using JiWire’s hotspot directory I can’t find any hotspots listed as being provided by Google in the San Francisco area, which is supposedly the rollout city for the Secure VPN offering. So I’m wondering if the inability to use the software is related to the fact that the guys at Engadget are not at a “Google” hotspot or that they’re not at a public hotspot which the software is able to recognize. This recognition would be required if Google is going to be able to serve up localized ads.
Even if all Google are offering is a free VPN client this is still extremely revolutionary for the telecommunications industry. A while back I wrote about how the Bell companies needed to see the opportunity that municipal Wi-Fi represented for them to offer security services for a fee or as an add-on to their current broadband subscribers. If Google are doing what I think theyre doing, thats a big check mate to the Bell companies, because your opportunity to differentiate yourselves from a free service has just come and gone. As the Soup Nazi would say, NEXT!
Categories: Technology
Tagged: google, wi-fi
Om Malik has a story at Business 2.0 speculating on some of the reasons Google have been alleged to be buying high capacity dark fiber capacity from wholesale telecommunications providers. This comes several months after CNet published a speculative story about why Google were advertising for someone with experience negotiating with telecommunications companies. The complete list of job qualifications for said listing are as follows:
- Negotiations for collocation space in conventional data centers; for racks, power circuits, cross connects, and remote hands services in conventional data centers; and for wholesale transactions with conventional data centers in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
- Negotiation and purchasing of IP transit services in North America, Europe, Asia, and/or Latin America; negotiation of partnerships with Internet exchanges, regional peering providers, and paid peering arrangements with major carriers.
- Identification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network; contracts and negotiation for managed metropolitan services and long haul wavelength services to fulfill capacity and redundancy requirements in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
- Identification and negotiation of contracts related to leases or purchases of data centers facilities and/or properties capable of conversion to data center purposes; experience with evaluating and assessing potential data center facilities for acquisition; experience negotiating startup, service, and maintenance contracts for data centers; experience obtaining data center infrastructure hardware including chillers, generators, UPS systems, transformers, power distribution units, etc.
My own telecom experience didn’t lead me to think too, too much of this at the time. The original job posting looks pretty standard for a company with heavy data hosting requirements that is going to need lots of hosting space and bandwidth capacity to support a data-intensive platform such as Google. Considering the volumes of information they’re dealing with, dark fiber seems like a perfectly cost-effective path to take. The per-unit cost of dark fiber is significantly less than leased capacity, but only the highest-volume customers can make it cost effective. Likewise, Google put so much information onto the Internet backbone, that they must pay a lot in interconnect charges. As Google begin to offer more and more high-bandwidth content such as audio and video, it would become a significant expense to their bottom line. Using dark fiber and effectively building their own Internet backbone would help them better control these costs.
Om speculates that one possibility is that Goolgle could build out a nationwide Wi-Fi network. This is the bit of his article which is likely to get the most attention. The business model would be a mix of subscription access and location-based advertising. I’m not sure dark fiber purchases lend themselves to this end, because there would be an awful lot of local access connectivity to individual Wi-Fi locations which would be required. However, Om may have better insider information than I: Business 2.0 has learned from telecom insiders that Google is already building such a network, though ostensibly for many reasons.
The Wi-Fi thing doesnt make sense to me. Wi-Max maybe. But I doubt Google would want to deal with all of the local access issues involved in a major Wi-Fi build out (dark fiber wont help you here) nor the negotiations with owners of the venues in which Wi-Fi would be made available.
A reason which makes much more sense to me, and that Om outlays in his article as well, is that taking a dark fiber approach helps Google eliminate the expense of putting large amounts of information onto ISP networks. Om writes:
An even more compelling reason for Google to build its own network is that it could save the company millions of dollars a month. Here’s why: Every time a user performs a search on Google, the data is transmitted over a network owned by an ISP — say, Comcast (CMCSK) — which links up with Google’s servers via a wholesaler like AboveNet. When AboveNet bridges that gap between Google and Comcast, Google has to pay as much as $60 per megabit in IP transit fees. As Google adds bandwidth-intensive services, those costs will increase. Big networks owned by the likes of AT&T (T) get around transit fees by striking “peering” arrangements, in which the networks swap traffic and no money is exchanged. By cutting out middlemen like AboveNet, Google could share traffic directly with ISPs to avoid fees.
This makes much more sense to me, and fits in better with Google’s current content-oriented strategy.
Categories: CI · Technology
Tagged: broadband, google, telecom, wi-fi
I’m a day late (and a buck short?) on this one, but when I saw this article it really annoyed the hell out of me. Many thanks to Andy from Slashdot Review for brining this to my attention in his Podcast. I had been so busy at work the past few days that the news item completely escaped my attention.
According to this piece posted on Inside Bay Area, it is illegal to own a modified Pringles can or “cantenna”. These home-made items are used to extend the range of Wi-Fi routers. Just like the story of Florida man arrested for using an unprotected home Wi-Fi connection from his car. Once again, reading the article itself makes me as mad as hell. Let’s take a look, shall we:
Last month in Elk Grove, a high-school student faced eight felony computer-theft charges for allegedly hacking into his school’s computer system and changing his grades.
When police searched his home, they found aluminum-lined, cylindrical potato-chip containers that some hackers use as crude antennas to help them intercept wireless signals.
Known as “cantennas,” they consist of a Pringles can and some hardware worth $5 to $10 but can be used to amplify a wireless signal several miles away.
“They’re unsophisticated but reliable, and it’s illegal to possess them,” said Lozito of the Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force. [Sacramento County Sheriff's Lt. Bob Lozito of the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force]
Cantennas are illegal? When the hell did THAT happen? People can use cantennas to extend the range of their OWN Wi-Fi networks, even encrypted and protected networks. How can the cantenna be considered illegal if there is an overwhelming legitimate reason why someone might use one for legitimate purposes?
It’s also illegal to access wireless networks that aren’t public. In other words, if you’ve ever been pleasantly surprised to open your laptop, pull up your browser and have Internet access, that likely means you’ve just intruded into someone else’s unsecured network and really aren’t allowed to be there.
Strike two. Again, when the hell did this happen? Who defines what constitutes a “public” network? What if I’m sitting in a coffee shop with a free “public” connection and accidently access the network from a house around the corner. Have I just broken the law? This is absolutely nuts that accessing the network would be the crime. Committing the illegal acts that this article claims takes place over open networks are mentioned (the usual bugaboos of identity theft and child pornography are brought up). THESE acts are the crime– NOT accessing the network.
I’m not sure if the jurisdiction being referenced here is on such a local level that it escaped my attention. But these are two of the most absurd laws I’ve ever heard. I’m skeptical that the alleged laws mentioned in this article really are laws in any jurisdiction. Clearly they don’t pass any test of common sense.
The conspiracy theorist in me sees two things in this and related articles: bad journalism and a concerted effort to convince the public that open Wi-Fi access points are evil and free or municipal Wi-Fi networks should be illegal.
Categories: Technology
Tagged: law, pringles can, wi-fi
There has been a lot written in the press and the blogosphere the past few days about the Junxion Box. This is a device that utilizes a high-speed, 3G wireless data connection for a backhaul connection to the Internet and Wi-Fi for a wireless local area connection with multiple PCs. It’s like a wireless router that has no need for the DSL or cable connection. According to the New York Times Verizon is not happy about this. Just as with municipal Wi-Fi, Verizon have this one wrong, too.
The folks at Verizon Wireless seem concerned that customers who choose their $80 all-you-can-eat EV-DO wireless data plan are going to set up Junxion boxes to share with the entire neighborhood. There is a concern that this will eat into their wireless data revenues by allowing customers to share and overload their connections. There is also likely some concern that neighborhoods could use this box to share these connections and forgo buying DSL. This quote seems to suggest that fear:
“The premise is one person buys an air card and one person uses the service, not an entire neighborhood,” said Jeffrey Nelson, executive director for corporate communications at Verizon Wireless. “Giving things away for free doesn’t work anymore. It never did.”
These stated concerns ignore two very important realities:
- The real value of the EV-DO data plan is for customers on the move. These are the customers who are going to pay a premium for this service.
- Customers can already share DSL and cable Internet connections with their neighbors using Wi-Fi. These connections offer much faster throughput than EV-DO at a much lower cost. People aren’t going to forgo their own cable or DSL connection based on an EV-Do backhaul than they would today based on a shared cable or DSL connection.
Just as they do when articulating opposition to municipal Wi-Fi, Verizon are underestimating the value of their DSL service. They’re also underestimating the true value of their EV-DO service.
The really great thing about devices like the Junxion Box is the ability to create an instant hot spot in locations where otherwise no broadband service would be available. This won’t give laptop users a full equivalent to a connection with fixed backhaul, but will be good enough for checking e-mail and basic web browsing. Considering the interest from business customers for instant hotspots at conferences, meetings and other locations as well as in buses and other modes of transportation, Verizon Wireless should embrace this device in the same way that Cingular appear to be.
Considering the problems carriers are having getting customers to sign up to their premium data plans, they need to be able to offer functionality such as this. Then maybe they’ll actually get some revenue coming in for those high-speed data networks they spent billions to build.
Categories: Technology
Tagged: telecom, wi-fi
In what has to be one of the most perfect examples of technical ignorance and technophobia, a man in Tampa Bay, Florida has been arrested for parking outside a house and making use of an open Wi-Fi network. The story in the St. Petersburg Times is here.
Aside from the sheer lunacy of the charge itself, I strongly recommend reading the article for an example of yellow journalism. Some of the scare words used are phenomenal:
- Police say Benjamin Smith III, 41, used his Acer brand laptop to hack into Dinon’s wireless Internet network.
- But experts believe there are scores of incidents occurring undetected, sometimes to frightening effect.
- People have used the cloak of wireless to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats
- “I’ll guarantee there are tons of people out there who have their wireless network being exploited but have no idea,” Breeden said.
I could go on with the language in this article, but I’ll stop. Clearly this piece is intended to scare the technology novice away from Wi-Fi and breathlessly describe a new horror sweeping the nation. It’s some pretty weak journalism.
The real kicker with respect to the arrest has to be that the guy who owned the wireless access point knew that he should encrypt his signal and employ a password, but simply didn’t bother:
The problem, security experts say, is many people do not take the time or are unsure how to secure their wireless access from intruders. Dinon knew what to do. “But I never did it because my neighbors are older.”
So what have we learned today from the St. Petersburg Times?
- Anybody who uses an open Wi-Fi access point is a criminal of the worst sort
- Those who own Wi-Fi access points are excused for any element of these crimes they apparently enable not only on the basis of ignorance of the technical means of protecting that infrastructure but also by sheer laziness
- You shouldn’t worry about exploits of your network infrastructure if your neighbors are “older” people, because “older” people don’t know anything about technology
With more pieces like this one we’re likely to see more public support for bills put forward by incumbent telcos opposing municipal Wi-Fi projects. If the general, uninformed public can be convinced that Wi-Fi is the domain of child pornographers and identity thieves, then grassroots support for the opposition to muni Wi-Fi will be a synch.
Categories: Politics
Tagged: law, wi-fi
The industry newsletter FierceWireless just announced the Fierce 15 for 2005.
I was curious to see that 3 of the 15 companies are focusing their business plans around the integration of mobile and Voice over IP technology. This raised a question in my head about how thrilled the wireless carriers themselves would be (or in this case not) to see customers have the ability to bypass their networks using voice over Internet. Specifically looking at environments where customers can connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to a computer or router to use the Internet to make calls. Everybody gets all worked up about users being able to use voice over Wi-Fi from hotspots, but I actually think more popular locations for this would be from work or home. Witness, for example, that Vonage and Skype recently making pushing into integrating Wi-Fi phones into their offerings, primarily intended for home or office use.
What this integration would really result in would be customers able to use their mobiles at home or work and completely bypass the carriers network. These are two places where customers spend a lot of time, so this development would really cut in to customer usage of their services. Functions like SMS and data services would also be able to bypass the carriers and run over the Internet.
One significant challenge which could represent a roadblock to consumer freedom is the question of call switching on the public telephone network. Carriers still hold a good number of cards in that regard, and its going to be a challenge to route calls over the appropriate infrastructure without their participation in some way. In other words, users will not have the convenience of a single contact number until carriers agree to play ball (or are forced to do so).
There are any number of strategic implications for companies involved in the voice and mobile services space. Wireless carriers such as Verizon Wireless, Cingular and others should be prepared to focus more on custom applications and information services independent of infrastructure, including perhaps adopting the routing of calls over the Internet as a value-added service of their offerings. They should also be prepared to see a big hit in their per-minute and data usage rates and adjust their price plans accordingly.
Mobile phone manufacturers stand to take back some power from the carriers in all of this. Ive written a couple of times now about how the dominance of the carrier is putting handcuffs on manufacturers, as demonstrated by Motorolas delayed introduction of the iPhone (presumably on the objection of a major carrier partner). Once again this presents the manufacturer an opportunity to market the device independently from the carrier.
Voice over Wi-Fi and mobile virtual network operators (mentioned earlier) are just two of the many strategic issues leaders in this industry segment need to keep in mind as they move into the future.
Categories: CI · Technology
Tagged: strategy, VoIP, wi-fi
Somehow I missed this piece in the Washington Post when it ran the first time around, but on 12 December this piece ran about RaySat, a Tysons Corner-based company which offers satellite backhaul for in-car Wi-Fi services. A piece is also running on the Wall Street Journal this morning, but people have to pay for that, so the link to the Post piece will hopefully suffice for the moment.
I’m not sure I would want to mar my sexy Acura with some big receiver mounted on the roof, but the ability to get broadband access from anywhere while in the car would be some serious goodness, particularly on long-distance drives. Just don’t surf the net while you’re driving! Speech synthesis of RSS feeds and podcast downloads to the car stereo would be sweeeeeet, though. I would suspect part of the key to sat-based services like this or DirecTV to your car is going to be to make the antennae smaller and less obvious. Also, in-car components need to become somewhat more flexible to accommodate new input and media devices. This consumer electronics segments could stand to become a bit more like a computer allowing easy integration of peripherals components.
Finally, can I just kvetch for a moment about these kids today and all the luxuries they have on the long family road trips? Back in my day you were lucky if you had a walkman to drown out the sound of your parents and siblings.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have to walk to work… uphill, and in the snow.
Categories: Technology
Tagged: wi-fi
A quick review of a Wi-Fi service I’m trying for the first time:
SBC FreedomLink is the service at Carribou Coffee on Broadway Street on the north side of Chicago. So far it’s cruising along quite fast, and the registration page was quick and easy.
At $3.95 for two hours the pricing isn’t too bad. I’m still not entirely convinced the pay Wi-Fi is the way for venues such as coffee shops to go, but the SBC pricing beats the hell out of T-Mobile or other providers’ pay-as-you-go pricing I’ve experienced.
Also, any number of European Wi-Fi providers (Swisscom EuroSpot, BT OpenZone, are you listening?) could learn from how simple it was to buy time with this service– just enter the credit card info and away you go. Sweet.
Categories: Consumerism
Tagged: wi-fi
