The Future of Wireless Connectivity 123
Unimonomous writes "CoolTechZone.com analyzes the future of wireless connectivity with WiMax standard. "WiMax is an upgrade from Wi-Fi and offers brilliant advantages over its predecessor. The obvious one being extended range (up to 15 miles), which means that establishing a few towers would pretty much make the entire city connected. Now this probably won't matter to those of us with 24/7 connectivity, but people living in rural and undeveloped areas would surely benefit from it." Update looks like the site buckled. Sorry.
SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:4, Informative)
Looks like CoolTechZone is down...second story today that the referenced article was unavailable...
Anyway, just so we have something to talk about...here's some info on WiMAX:
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:3, Informative)
CoolTechZone.com being down is not due to the
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:2)
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:3, Informative)
No, CoolTechZone was hosed before that story as well...it's been down all day (see here [slashdot.org] for proof).
It's too bad editors don't check the links before posting a story....this sort of unpleasantness coould have been avoided twice today.
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:2)
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:2)
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:2)
Could be that they just run their sessions via the DB. I see no SQL error pointing to content. So the better question might be... A) Why are they hitting the database for session data? Me thinks using cookies and files would be a much better implementation. Serves them right. B) It's a Mambo CMS thing.
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:1)
Coral Cache (Score:1, Insightful)
I saw another comment saying this particular site was down prior to slashdot hitting it, but still.
Re:Coral Cache (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a nice link [userscripts.org] for you...you'll need to have GreaseMonkey installed for it. Won't do you much good in this particular instance, but might help in the future.
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:2)
Duh.
Hum. (Score:1)
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:1)
Re:SQL Error on cooltechzone.com (Score:1)
Wireless (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wireless (Score:1)
Re:Wireless (Score:1)
Re:Wireless (Score:1)
Re:Wireless (Score:1)
Re:Wireless (Score:1)
The fifties ended a long time ago...
Re:Wireless (Score:1)
Re:Wireless (Score:1, Funny)
Think about it for a moment.
No change, really. (Score:1)
In the past my local phone calls were "free" by paying a monthly fee for service to connect my device (a phone) to the network (the telco switched network)
Today my long distance calls are "free" by paying a monthly fee to connect my radio device (labeled a cel-phone) to a wireless network of similar phones
Tomorrow my voice and data transmissions will be "free" by paying a monthly fee to connect my radio device (now labeled a computer
Re:Wireless (Score:1)
Article Text (in case of /.) (Score:5, Funny)
DB function failed with error number 1062
Duplicate entry '1-' for key 2 SQL=INSERT INTO mos_session ( `session_id`,`time`,`guest` ) VALUES ( '99c38d82aea6757aa4798255c8c4f8d6','1129829336','
Re:Article Text (in case of /.) (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.cooltechzone.com.nyud.net:8090/index.p
Re:Article Text (in case of /.) (Score:1)
http://mirrordot.org/stories/effe3f9d48d28ed804ea
CoolTech == HotTech (Score:2)
Re:Article Text (in case of /.) (Score:1)
I just can't see any good reason
Re:Article Text (in case of /.) (Score:2)
I SOLVED THE MYSTERY! (Score:1)
Two
No wonder the server flunked. Heh.
The Only Downside (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, it would be nice if I can get higher bandwidth for the same price. When they did an equipment upgrade at their network tower, I received twice the bandwidth for the same price (still a bit pricey at $65/month).
Re:The Only Downside (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Only Downside (Score:3, Funny)
jesus. for that much, i hope they at least took a sharpie and wrote 'cisco' somewhere on it.
Re:The Only Downside (Score:2)
Nah, I think it says 'VETC'.
Line of sight still, though.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The bigger problem is line of sight distances. I've done some testing with this and have the advantage of living on top of a very big hill, within view of DSL - about 5km over a lake. We've gotten connections with very crude antennas already using GPS to line things up reasonably well.
The big limitation has always been line of sight, and WiMax does nothing to change this - and might hurt, if it fragments 802.11b. Wimax (802.16?) is not compatible with
Re:Line of sight still, though.. (Score:1, Interesting)
That and Wi-Max 802.16d is already considered a dead tech with 802.16e being its replacement. 802.16e is currently being targeted at only licensed bands, (2.5, 3.2, etc) which means big companies are the ones that will be able to do it,
Re:Line of sight still, though.. (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimax [wikipedia.org]
In fact, aside from IR, I don't recall any standard wireless communication that was only limited to line of sight. Obviously, density and EM radiation attenuation properties of the objects between sending and receiving antenna will affect the range and signal strength. But that doesn't mean it won't go through walls.
Did you read the wikipedia entry? (Score:4, Informative)
It should be noted that these claims, especially that such distances can be achieved without line of sight, represent, at best, a theoretical maximum under ideal circumstances
Line of sight is ALWAYS going to be required in that frequency spectrum, unless you are very close or at very high power levels.
Re:Line of sight still, though.. (Score:3, Informative)
No, but you must be damn close to line of sight (you must be NLOS - near line of sight). And you need something for signals to reflect off of. WiMax is able to handle multipathing and multipath distortion of signals.
But that doesn't mean it won't go through walls.
When we're talking about RF frequencies above 1 GHz, if the relevant signals goes right through a wall from transmitter to receiver, you have line of sight for it. Line of sight means the signal is going from
Re:Line of sight still, though.. (Score:2)
Re:Line of sight still, though.. (Score:2)
Two words (Score:2)
Just while we're on the subject of Wi-fi (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Onion (Score:1)
http://www.hale-co.com/americanonion/
Re:The Onion (Score:2)
Re:Just while we're on the subject of Wi-fi (Score:1)
Reminds me of the bumper sticker "If your not outraged, your not paying attention."
Re:Just while we're on the subject of Wi-fi (Score:2)
It's not so much the US has 'dropped', but rather other countries are moving up faster.
If you got a 10% raise, and other workers got a 13% raise, you wouldn't say your salary has 'dropped', would you?
Re:Just while we're on the subject of Wi-fi (Score:2)
Well, yes, because if most people get a raise there will be inflation. Another example: if your tribe only has spears and the next tribe over suddenly acquires gunpowder, your spears don't protect you any more (even though the spears didn't change overnight).
I think the implication is that connectivity contributes to long-term technical and economic superiority. (And I happen to agree, whet
Re:Just while we're on the subject of Wi-fi (Score:2)
Households with incomes under $30k are probably spending their money on more important items than broadband access. Unless the BBC means access to broadband, but I doubt it.
-dave
What about security? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about security? (Score:1)
Re:What about security? (Score:2)
Simple. Buy a Mac laptop with OS X and turn the firewall on.
But seriously, Joe Schmoe is just as likley to get infected on his DSL line than WiFi because they most likley haven't bought a hardware firewall much less a normal NAT router. If I was leary about my windows boxen being directly on the internet via wifi, I'd buy a Wifi bridge and run a cable it through a NAT/Firewall Router directly to windows box, but I doubt Joe would go that far. His only hope is that th
Firewalls are common on DSL, not WiMax (Score:2)
Re:What about security? (Score:2)
Or a code cracker?
Re:What about security? (Score:2)
Re:What about security? (Score:2)
Use Mirrordot! (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Use Mirrordot! (Score:2, Troll)
Use Mirrordot!
And get the same error message as the original URL!
gl hf... not going to see it in rural areas (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you are talking about automating your farm equipment with wifi, I doubt many rural areas will see this until far into the future.
Who is going to pay to set up a tower to give 20 people internet? The reason wimax is so attractive in cities is the user density. I suppose the point is that it is cheaper than laying new land lines in rural areas (where broadband capable lines may be absent)?
It doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon, though. And there is still the matter of wiring the towers. Unless you wanted them to route signals wirelessly... I wouldn't want to risk my data travelling hundreds of miles over air. Fifteen is bad enough.
Sure we'll see it in rural areas, why not? (Score:1, Troll)
Good point, but then why is the world's largest wireless cloud in rural Oregon?
Seems to me that we should pay less attention to trying to tell people what they want and how they should all wear the latest fashion and use the latest $2000 laptop and more time in noticing that they are buying hybrid cars instead of SUVs, buying $500 laptops with Linux or BSD instead of $2000 laptops, and maybe they want to install high-speed wireless in rural ar
Re:gl hf... not going to see it in rural areas (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:gl hf... not going to see it in rural areas (Score:2)
Re:gl hf... not going to see it in rural areas (Score:2)
A rural ISP would piggy back on existing towers. Even in the backwoods there are towers for radio stations, businesses, cellular telephone, etc.
Good luck getting space on those towers. Cellular phone towers are often owned by the telephone company which doesn't like competition (or future competition) with DSL. Radio tower owners can be outrageous in their rental fees and many states have confusing enforcement of power/telephone-poles being used for other telecommunications purposes.
-Grym
Re:gl hf... not going to see it in rural areas (Score:1)
Re:gl hf... not going to see it in rural areas (Score:1)
Don't be a dickhead, it would be quite easy to set up bases in the town centers which do have the population, then set up repeaters to the outlying areas.
One problen with rural connection... (Score:3, Insightful)
Some folk in our area can't get anything as they are too remote for lines, to hily for towers and those same hills and trees block sattelite access.
Of interest to not just rural/remote people (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Of interest to not just rural/remote people (Score:2)
You know that once the peer-to-peer networking starts it only takes a few people who pay for the Internet to open up their machines to route people from the free wireless within the community to the entire Internet. Eventually, this would turn into a huge ad-hoc network and keep expanding.
Re:Of interest to not just rural/remote people (Score:2)
Municipalities could offer any service, like water/power/etc for "free" if they get creative... but most prefer not to. There are required "free" services like police, fire, etc, and there are "frivilous" free services, like street lights, water fountains, parks, etc...
In the case of the parks/water/lights make the area more user-friendly. They
The problems are not so easy to fix (Score:5, Insightful)
The problems are content and distribution. Right now, plans are being made for IPTV and radio, and many many things that are digital in nature, all of which make life better or easier to cope with. Still, copyright and patent law will fsck it up if changes are not made now... Later is no good, the changes need to be made now....
two cents used
eeeeeeeeew! (Score:2, Informative)
(let's hope the website is fixed soon)
Re:eeeeeeeeew! (Score:2)
Good for cities too (Score:2)
WiMax is a step in the right direction (Score:1)
Seems to me that the problem with WiFi and even WiMax is that they use such high frequencies, that the signal can't get "through" much of anything. Trees are enough to screw up the signal. If they could use freqencies in the ~100 Mhz range that VHF TV broadcasts use, they would be able to go through most stuff. Seems to me like that is
Re:WiMax is a step in the right direction (Score:1)
Oh ... wait ...
Municipal-provided Access Will Hurt Us All (Score:1, Insightful)
no people (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that there are not enough people in those areas to make it profitable.
Re:no people (Score:2)
Actually I'm saying that they should have it. I'm one of those people. But we can't seem to get it out here. (Can't even get cable tv.)
Overhyped (Score:1, Interesting)
You're right, cellular is overhyped. (Score:2)
Who the hell cares?
Cellular broadband is under the thumb of cellphone companies. If you think that's not a deal-killer for any hope of sane pricing right there, you must work for a cellphone company -- in their sales department. Nobody else would possibly be willing to shut down their critical facilities to that degree.
the growing cellular broadband market
The what?
Re:Overhyped (Score:2)
And Windows Vista might be a Better UNIX than UNIX.
Still in the Dark Ages of information (Score:2)
In the U.S., a ton of bandwidth is wasted (regulated) to antiquated technology. OTA analog and/i> digital television frequencies are two decades outdated. Lower "open" frequencies (old cordless phones, etc) are underutilized.
Information is like a river at a dam ready to break. Once we free up the limitations on frequencies, we'll see so many wireless forms of communication that publicly paid WiFi will be too expensive to compete.
In my
Preview is my friend... (Score:2)
Too much radiation? (Score:1)
High Speed community networks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Beyond that, you have all the same limitations as current ISPs (i.e. I don't see this giving me a low cost 30Mbps connection.. hopefully DSL or Cable will eventually do this).
But, in relatively dense areas, I see some cool possibilities in community networks. In these, we don't worry about a big pipe to the Internet, which would be expensive. We just join a local network and share resources at high speeds.
As it is now, if i leave my upload speed reasonable on P2P apps, it quickly swamps my outbound bandwidth and all my Internet access goes to crap. P2P networks, file servers, could be a lot more useful at high LAN speeds -- and most people would be more willing to serve at high speeds when it doesn't effect their Internet connection.
Even sharing huge files, like HDTV programs, could be feasible on the local networks.
Link a few of these WiMax networks together, and you can get some huge alternate networks, where people provide useful services for their communities. Without bandwidth costs, it becomes very cheap.. I can easily set up a Linux box to dedicate to this network for a couple hundred bucks.
FiMax (Score:4, Informative)
So WiFi isn't exactly an "upgrade" to WiFi. It's a complementary technology. Even throttling down the power to cover only a few blocks with each WiMax AP to use its higher bandwidth is only useful as a connection "umbrella" to interconnect denser WiFi hotspots in buildings and cars. Which is also appropriate, because users in public places are usually mobile or casual, without the bandwidth demands of a stationary user. WiMax marketers are selling it as an upgrade to WiFi because WiFi is such a popular brand name, and WiMax has to sell to anyone who will buy. But we should get excited only about the WiMax features that are actually better than WiFi in the scenarios where WiFi is now the round peg in the square hole. Otherwise we'll be sorely disappointed when inappropriate WiMax applications underperform even WiFi, and we'll be stuck with the wrong solution - and the marketdroids will be stuck with our money, without which we can't buy what we actually want.
WiMAX is not a "WiFi Upgrade" (Score:1)
WiMAX is a different thread in the IEEE technical standards, designed to accomplish different things. WiFi's upgrade path is not from 802.11g to 802.16, but to the partly-completed 802.11n.
The 802.11n standard is designed for faster wireless LANs - which is a different market to the WiMAX wireless local loop target.
Residents' network (Score:1)
More of the same (Score:1)
Here's An Idea! (Score:1)
Why WiMAX and not BPL? (Score:1)
Uhhh (Score:5, Insightful)