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Wireless Networking Hardware

BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi 110

Posted by CmdrTaco from the bits-and-bytes-through-the-wild-blue-yonder dept.
ydeepakjois writes "BusinessWeek is running a series of articles on the potential of wireless high-speed access, the Wi-Fi industry and the challenges faced by it. There is also an interesting bit about a business model for wireless carriers."
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BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi More

BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi

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  • This is going to be a joyous thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thedbp ( 443047 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @12:59PM (#5537337)
    When Centrinos are commonplace and WiFi hotspots are provided and subsidized by Intel and the like around the country, those lucky bastards who bought iBooks and PowerBooks w/ AirPort YEARS ago will have a nice little windfall of free bandwidth as they roam around the landscape.

    Being ahead of the curve has always been good for Apple users - sometimes you find that the industry sort of settles around what you've been doing/using for years ... for instance, Macs have had built-in ethernet since 1991, and the first true a/v models that features composite and s-video input and output w/a second DSP chip specifically for the heavy a/v lifting, debuted in 1993.

    I feel like a Boy Scout w/ my Mac - always prepared. And not in the hot entree type of prepared - I mean the "ready for anything" type of prepared.

    • Re:This is going to be a joyous thing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by benjiboo ( 640195 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:03PM (#5537368)
      Battery life on laptops needs to improve before wireless access is truly a useful thing. You couldn't anticipate being able to pick up a mail or video conference with such a big possibiliy of running out of juice. This is especially important as it's mainly useful to business users - even the most hardcore geek can do without the web for a few hours whilst traveliing etc.
      • What is this, an ad for Centrino?

        Anyways for what it's worth, a LOT of conferences nowadays set up wireless access and it is very popular. Just walk around at lunchtime and you'll see many people checking email (or just surfing the web or whatever). As for videoconferencing, that's not even popular over wired connections.

      • Re:This is going to be a joyous thing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Surak ( 18578 ) <surak&mailblocks,com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:29PM (#5537561) Homepage Journal
        At the risk of sounding somewhat like the Mac fanboy the parent poster is (as I am not a Mac fanboy myself), I'll point out that iBooks are supposed to get something like 5 hours of battery life in real-life use. Centrinos are supposed to get 5-7, I'm guessing 4-5 in real-life use. Personally I'd like to see notebooks that can do 8-10 hours -- IOW, a full day's work.

        I personally don't see anyway for battery life to improve unless people are willing to compromise on performance and whizbang features. Battery capacity itself is as perfected as it's going to get...the key is to cut down consumption. But everytime someone figures out how to cut consumption on one component, the laptop mfrs stuff more features in rather than focusing on a laptop that has the longest possible battery life.

        Unfortunately, too many people will buy laptop "X" with 17" display, DVD+R+RW/CD/R/RW combo superdrive, ultrawhizzy 300 GB hard drive, with the latest and greatest ultrawhizzy superfast processor and 1.5 hours of battery life rather than laptop "Y" which only has a 13.1" or 14" display, a relatively slow-clocked processor, with a somewhat slow, but powersaving hard drive, no removable storage and 7 hours of battery life.

        That's because they've bought into the marketing hype and have forgotten that the number 1 advantage of a laptop is to be able to work anywhere, anytime. Laptops don't NEED to be desktop replacements, they should be thought of as desktop complements, rather than replacements.
        • That's because they've bought into the marketing hype and have forgotten that the number 1 advantage of a laptop is to be able to work anywhere, anytime. Laptops don't NEED to be desktop replacements, they should be thought of as desktop complements, rather than replacements.

          Nonsense. While a laptop doesn't NEED to be a desktop replacement, if its a "desktop companion" it radically changes the function. If I chose a desktop companion laptop, it would be and "ultraportable", the biggest I'd consider would

          • Version control. A while ago, I juggled three computers, home computer, work computer, and a laptop. Could never tell where the latest document was, and would often fork my own documents constantly, or not have the info I thought I had because it had been done on one of the other systems. Which one? Who knows.

            That's not the fault of the laptop...that's the fault of having no centralized document management system. With wireless internet connectivity, you could maintain all of your documents on a server s

            • Version control. A while ago, I juggled three computers, home computer, work computer, and a laptop. Could never tell where the latest document was, and would often fork my own documents constantly, or not have the info I thought I had because it had been done on one of the other systems. Which one? Who knows.

              That's not the fault of the laptop...that's the fault of having no centralized document management system. With wireless internet connectivity, you could maintain all of your documents on a server

        • That's where fuel cells will come into play. A fuel cell will give your laptop enough power to run all of the wizbang stuff that many people want, as long as they want.

          Wireless will be essential in the future for any laptop. With wireless, one will be able to go online and check e-mail, surf, etc. almost anywhere. Security will get better with new 802.11 standards -- default 802.11b is very poor, even with 128 bit WEP. There are more wireless hubs out there every month -- my Orinoco card and net stumb

          • That's where fuel cells will come into play. A fuel cell will give your laptop enough power to run all of the wizbang stuff that many people want, as long as they want.

            Don't forget *weight*. Remember, you've gotta carry this thing around all day... fuel cells are heavy in case you hadn't noticed. And they can explode too. I don't want my laptop to be considered munitions.
        • Buy more batteries. Sure it's costlier, heavier, sure it's space-eating. But you get your 8+ hours easily, at only a fraction of the cost of tomorrow's "tech".

          Invest in very small (3 pound) laptops, that get 5 hours per battery, and a few hotspares(less than a pound each), and you are good for a day, easy.
        • Yes, that's right. Some people only use a laptop as
          1. A full desktop replacement [desknote.net] with little/no need for battery
          2. A portable desktop replacement [xtremenotebooks.com], to simply "plug in" wherever you are, but some battery to allow for standby
          3. Strong battery, with adequate processor power for usage on the go (centrino/ibook)
          4. Full battery-powered operation, with little/no usage while "plugged in", and minimal processor power

          Now, since #2 and #3 are the "sweet spot" (due to business usage), and #1 can be fulfilled by a #2 class laptop

        • Verizon is launching 1x-EvDO soon in two cities(2.5 Mbps peak) and Sprint can't be to far behind. So if you can get 600-800 Kbps reliable downloads through your cell phone plan, then why would you pay more to access the internet at a coffee house? WiFi lacks security, has interference problems, and no roaming yet. If companies can't make money then they will go away.
    • Off topic, but you are correct. Never really liking Windows I've been the one playing with/using Linux, BSD, BeOS in the basement at home... :)

      With OS X the move the Mac's has been painless. The family loves theirs and those at work are always ready too.

      I've never had the need, want or desire to play with PPPoE until a recent broadband install forced me to. The router they supplied required Windows to setup/install which VirtualPC took care of -- and showed me I didn't want their router after all.

      I have
      • On topic, and I hate replying to my own posts (how rude!). The broadband install _was_ a wireless 5Ghz connection which is easily giving me 4Mbs (http://www.dls.net/).

        Cable in this area (heavily populated now) is not available.

        I had DSL with Ameritech, er SBC, um, SBC/Yahoo! which was originally 768K. Either it was down, had poor latency, or would just drop 80% of the packets on a WEEKLY basis and last for hours to days on end. I put up with this for YEARS now and finally cut them ... after they cut my co
    • Well, good for Mac users, but the barrier to entry for Wi-Fi is so low that anyone (not virtually anyone, but anyone) with a PC or laptop can benefit. Wi-Fi compatible wireless access cards can be found for as little as $30, possibly less with rebates.

      And as for Apple being ahead of the curve, the problem with that is that if they shipped wireless products before mid-1999, those products might not be compatible with existing networks. This is because 802.11b was ratified by the IEEE in mid 1999, and Wi-Fi

  • I have read several of the recent BW articles lauding the beaty and wonder of WI-FI. I was apalled at the lack of concern about the security issues associated with wireless communications.

    While it is great to talk about the productivity gains of the tools, we dare not ignore the threats against:

    Confidentiality
    Integrity
    Availability.
    • the security issues are the same as they are with a hard line connection on a local network... regards snooping and so forth. if you want a secure connection, you dont use telnet, and you dont trust unknown keys in ssh/ssl. if you want your actions recorded for all to see, better use telnet :-/

      'nuff said.

    • What about the security? The good ole' wired Internet doesn't provide confidentiality or integrity anyways. That's why we have ssl. And supressing WiFi isn't going to increase availability of anything.

      Treat a WiFi adapter just like a connection to the Internet, and you can't go far wrong.

      • With all due respect, I am not attempting to stifle or suppress WI-FI technology.

        I sincerely believe that the security issues associated with WI-FI are somewhat more challenging than "connectivity to the Internet" in that, many folks are tempted to simply plug WI-FI into their internal corporate network without knowledge that they may be leaking their confidential data to bypassers.
    • i wouldn't know what it takes to secure wireless access in a public/corporate setting, but here at the "crib" I secure my wireless network by restricting access to specified MAC addresses, limiting the router's IP broadcast to 3 IP addresses (the number of computers on the network), requiring a password for logon, and having each computer running a software firewall restricting all but the required ports.

      I don't enable WEP encryption because I find that it cuts down bandwidth by 30-40%. Does that mean I'm a

      • Not if you don't mind folks seeing your bills as you pay them.

        You can secure the transactions by running through SSH or setting up a vpn tunnel...there's some overhead, but I'd guess your computers could encrypt faster than the hardware in your 802.11 setup.

      • Corporations turning to wireless networks for operational flexibility without considering the security risks may be carelessly sacrificing the integrity of their systems," said Phil Cracknell, a security specialist with the Institute of Information Security in England, who helped carry out the survey. "The emanations from these wireless networks can and do leak outside their buildings providing access potential to hackers wherever they may be. This represents a real and significant threat to unprotected wi

    • True. Too often a technology rapidly gains popularity and then the world finds that it is missing some vital component which, with hindsight, should have been built into the protocol in the first place. Worse, the extra feature can not be tacked on to it without breaking compatibility. Had SMTP had a better authentication system, spam would probably not exist today. Another example is gnutella - it didn't scale. But there is often no way to provide for the future since it is impossible to know what directio

    • A good and related article There are concerns deserving attention here. [eweek.com]

    • Easy: VPN (Score:5, Informative)

      by div_2n ( 525075 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:14PM (#5537968)
      The only real stop gap solution at this point is to have a VPN server on the other side of the wireless connection. That way, your packets can be sniffed all day and would be crackers have to deal with breaking VPN crypto.

      I suspect that in the end, that will be the way to go regardless of new advancements in WEP that may or may not come about.

      The bottom line is that somewhere, the day will have to be encrypted in some way because it is open in the air for anyone to grab. If you put the burden of the horsepower required to encrypt/decrypt on your WAP, then your ability to serve large numbers of clients diminishes.

      In other words, leave the WAP duties up to the WAP and leave the encryption duties up to a VPN server. No changes to current technologies required.

    • There is certainly a place for those things, but I am currently working under an IT department that is absoultly paralized due to their security fears.

      They won't look into making WiFi a "permitted" standard, but they will buy the equipment to do security sweeps to make sure no one has set up a rogue WiFi access point.

      • Unfortunately, fear can bring paralysis. I believe that a thoughtful review of the subject will reveal that there are mechanisms available to bring about secure WI-FI functionality, e.g.:

        1. Access Points must be placed on an isolated network segment connected to a firewall.

        2. End users must be authenticated through the use of strong, two-factor authentication before being allowed to connect to the wireless network.

        3. All wireless communication must be strongly encrypted (triple-DES or AES). This e

        • #1: Exactly what I was getting at. The first stop data should travel through to be secure is a VPN/Firewall before it gets anywhere else.

          #2: Not a bad idea. I assume you mean authenticate via RADIUS to get access to the WAP and then VPN to access the other side.

          #3: Absolutely. This is the ONLY way currently to guarantee security of data.

          #4 I disagree with completely.

          WEP is clearly and easily breakable. It can be a pain to keep up with WEP keys.

          At best it keeps complete beginners from viewing data p
    • And precisely how much security exist now?

      If you are securing against unauthized users you clamp down at the DHCP server. If your are securing against unauthorized people leaching your connection, you secure at the NAT gateway. If you are securing from unauthorize people externally, you do it at the firewall.

      All of this is network level stuff. It doesn't matter if they are getting in through a hard-line, a wifi connection, or a some well trained rats and a fiber splice.

  • this is a nice idea... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sickboy_macosX ( 592550 ) <sickboy.inconnu@isu@edu> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:02PM (#5537362) Homepage Journal
    But it would be nice if we could see wifi hotspots in other smaller cities like Seattle Wireless [seattlewireless.org] has set up in their town. I think if ISP's could lower the equipment costs for their WI-FI equipment down from 600 dollars to about 100, or 200 more people would catch on. That and someone needs to come up with a way for the Wireless Providers to be able to shoot over the hilly and rocky mountains like we have in Southeast Idaho. And if we could fix the speed barrier, get the bottle neck up from 11mbps to 54 or even higher, that would rock!
    • I think you mean Seattle Wireless (.net) [seattlewireless.net]. seattlewireless.org doesn't resolve for me.

    • Re:this is a nice idea... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I was under the impression that 802.11b's range was anywhere from 100-5000ft depending on the antenea. It doesn't sound like you'll be bouncing the signal over any hills or mountains without several relay points...
      • That is the problem, people here in south east idaho think they can get around with out having to have repeaters, or signal amplification equipment, and so the people who live where Qwest Communications [qwest.com] is too lazy to roll out DSL, or Cable One Television [cableone.net] dont want to work with the coax to make it so cable broadband is available. I personally think it is shit, that people can get away with over pricing, like Cable one and their 40.00 bill if you have cable internet. more Subscribers=more revenue-overhe
    • The limitations causing hills to be a problem are built into the 2.4 ghz frequency. Physics is to blame and cannot be changed. Signals such as FM radio have a much better ability to penetrate uneven terrain.

      The way to get around the problem of obstruction of signal, multiple repeater sites are necessary. There is a cost associated that makes it hard to justify if there isn't significant population density to cover an area.

      As far as upping speed to 54 mbps in the 2.4 ghz range, 802.11g will make that a
    • Hmm. Considering the range for Wifi is measured in miles even with te fancy boosters, you are going to need at least one neighbor with a Broadband connection.

      Just make sure that's a neighbor on the top of a hill.

  • What about free-as-in-beer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pork_spies ( 659663 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:04PM (#5537379)
    We really have a chance to make this wave of the 'net' very different from the previous round - and that means taking control and offering an alternative vision (see Consume [consume.net]).
    Who care about what Business Week says? It's about as interesting as 3G phones from their end - ie not at all interesting, just another way to part us from our money. Yes, let's all buy wireless cards, but learn the lesson of P2P and make them available to all.

  • Wow (Score:3, Informative)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:05PM (#5537389) Homepage Journal
    Business week seem to have got a really good tech section. Check out some of the articles in the "recent tech features" sidebar on the left.

  • business travelers... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:06PM (#5537396)
    this is my biggest problem w/Wi-Fi "hot-spots". There has to be more people than just "business travelers" that want wireless Internet connections...

    This is NOT a good business model people. I do NOT want to have to goto the local airport or downtown coffee shop (not my type of place) in order to get connected while I am out of my house.

    I want connections EVERYWHERE and ANYWHERE. I want to goto the local bar, sit down w/my NTN Playmaker, my Budweiser, and my 12 Wild Wings, watching Football, and hop on the net to surf, AIM, ssh, etc.

    I am NOT a business traveler. I will probably never be one.

    Good business models include a LARGE cross-section.
    • Good business models include a LARGE cross-section.

      If you meant to imply that all good business models include a large cross section, you're absolutely wrong. That mentality fostered the .com business models of "building brand recognition" that ultimately went nowhere. There are many spectacularly successful business models that are very narrowly targeted, but do very well at saturating their target market (think Mercedes-Benz).

    • A good business model must include a path to profitability for the service provider. The business traveler has shown in the past a willingness to pay for services rendered, and so companies that provide services will concentrate on that customer first. In addition, the business traveler may also generate good will inside the companies they work for if the service provided effectively meets their needs. That traveler may later become the executive responsible for selecting service providers for other thin
    • Wow. Why would you need to surf the net and all that in a bar? I surf because I am bored. if I'm at a bar, I'm by definition not bored.

    • I thought rant was a -1 not a +1. Moderators, strike that boy down as a whiner.

      If you want all that and a bag of chips, just buy yourself one of those wiresless web phones and plug it into your laptop. Sprint sells them, Verizon sells them. The service isn't all that expensive. It is a bit slow, but not all that expensive.

    • Business travellers maybe few in number, but as nay mobile Network Operator will tell you, these 3 - 5 % of contracted ( post pay) users account for about 70% of revenue! (Roaming and data traffic being the big earners!!)

      As for wifi becoming hygenic, I attended CEBIT recently and the NOs will be bringing wifi as a business solution, I dont think they have grasped the concept of ubiquity yet...

      They also see embracing Wifi as a way of protecting their revenue as wifi threatens 3G revenue and of course profi

  • Why is this so hard to understand? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:07PM (#5537400)
    There is also an interesting bit about a business model for wireless carriers.

    There is no business model for wireless, that's why it's so great!

    It's 100% commodity based. Companies build commodity products, and the consumer purchases them to become part of the ISP. Mesh routers, 802X nodes, etc are all self-sufficient "black boxes" purchased by users for users.

    The last thing we need is another middle-man sending us a bill for something that's free!
    • There is no business model for wireless, that's why it's so great!

      Yeah, but if there is a business model that includes profit there will be a lot more wireless sites to use (if you are willing to pay), and it shouldn't have a big impact on the number of free ones.

      Having a model where some folks "give it away" is great, the lack of a for-profit model isn't great.

    • Someone has to pay the costs for keeping up the equipment and the high speed connection everyone is using.

      How do you figure that my T1/T3/etc is free? What about the $500-800 bucks for a quality WAP/Router that dies and has to be replaced?

      Look, I am all for free services. But the bottom line is that somewhere in the chain someone has to pay. Are you suggesting mass mooching?

      The only way this would be a truly free endeavor is if the idea of a structured network went out the door and everything was trul

  • Interference (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tweakmeister ( 638831 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:08PM (#5537418) Homepage
    I think you'll find WiFi slowly fazed out for different technologies, namely ones that are...proprietary.

    Interference and crowding may prove to become too much of an issue as everyone hops on the bandwagon.

    This being said, WiFi is a great technology to pave the way in wireless.

    • I think you'll find WiFi slowly fazed in after different proprietary technologies failed to catch on.

      Consumers were appropriately unwilling to be locked into a particular vendor, and eventually these vendors decided to come up with a standard protocol that would make all of their equipment compatible.

      As I recall, there were even incompatibilities among early 802.11 implementations, leading to the creation of the "WiFi" label, which guarantees interoperability with other "WiFi" products from any manufactur

    • Take for instance the "recreational" 46/49mhz band. The first wireless phones that came out used these...so did walkie talkies...so did baby monitors...so did intercom systems...etc, etc. Opening up a band like this will eventually cause problems. This being said, we've come a long ways with refining the technology....in the mean time I love my WiFi setup :)
  • and the manufacturers will continue to ship Wi-Fi access enabled routers for home use that are wide open. So truly everyone can access the internet from anywhere! (and do anything they want since there is no way to track them down...) Isn't that a threat for national security? haha....
  • and I was utterly disappointed to read, "This transfers at a rate of 11mbps, that's roughly equivalent to 10 minutes of digital music or 500 single page word documents every second."

    I really wish people would stop using this "roughly equivalent" analogy. What type of digital music are we talking? It doesn't answer anything really. If we're talking about a .WAV or other lossless format, 11mbits a second transfers what... a minute, if that a second? Nevermind the lack of understanding of big-B vs. little-B.

    This is off-topic, just something I read and wanted to bitch about.
  • Q: When do you think the company will earn its first net quarterly profit?

    A: Sprint PCS became operating-positive last year, and we expect to be free-cash-flow-positive in 2003 and net-income-profitable next year.

    Can anyone explain what the difference is between these three things? And, does any of them actually mean "profitable"? I can't tell.
    • You become cash flow positive when cash is coming into your bank faster than it is flowing out.

      You become net income profitable when your recognized income is higher than your recognized costs.

      The difference between the two could be due to timing of income and cost recognitions.

      Or their definition of "cash-flow positive" might be "operating cash-flow positive" which does not include capital spending.

    • Re:Profitable (Score:3, Informative)

      by Surak ( 18578 )
      Operating positive means that your operating expenses are less than your operating income. Free-cash-flow positive means that you basically always have a positive cash-flow situation -- you always have cash on-hand. Net-income-profitable means that after taxes, overhead, and direct expenses, yada yada, you have a positive net income... Err...IOW you made money after you paid everything out, including taxes.

  • Wi-Fi.. great for what it is (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:03PM (#5537875)
    I mean, it's great that Wi-Fi hardware is so cheap and commoditized and everything, but what people keep seem to be missing is that A) the cheap commodity hardware is designed for small local area coverage, which is fabulous for business LANs and easy home networking, but bad for a general mobile wireless service B) hotspot-only coverage just doesn't provide a strong enough value proposition C) the purely commoditized nature of the hardware makes for a zero barriers to entry business. Anybody can build a network of hotspots on one payment system. But even if everybody used the same payment system, there would certainly be some value from it, but not at such a striking level that it is likely to happen. D) The only businesses that really have a striking imperative to need hotspots there are coffee shops, hotels and other places that make a living off of having people linger. McDonalds wireless - bad idea (I know they are experimenting with it), they want to get you in and out as soon as possible.


    The fact is, 3G wireless networks are going to win out in the long run. Being able to open your laptop in the coffee shop and surf the web is great, but the bigger "wireless" market is vehicular embedded communications devices, fully connected PDAs, email-on-the-go, web browsing from where-ever you want. And no, futzing with my fucking cellphone keypad to send a stupid SMS message just doesn't count, I want it all on my Palm Pilot/Windows CE device, I want it seemless, I want it universal, I want it affordable.

    • Amen and amen.

      That said, wherever people sit and congregate with laptops they will want internet access. Wifi can provide it. The trick is to be able to make it worth someone's while to put in the wireless.

      Oh wait, that's me (shameless plug) [etoyoc.com][etoyoc.com]

      • Re:Wi-Fi.. great for what it is (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @03:23PM (#5538523)
        That's it guys, WiFi isn't going to enable the PDA and handheld. It's too power hungry and please don't try to tell me you can use WiFi on your existing handheld just fine. 1 hour of use and then back to the charger is NOT useful and only allows snake oil salesmen like Bill Gates to do demos. It's not usable in the business market or at home IMHO.

        Bluetooth has alot of the answers. It enables PDAs, handhelds, laptops, etc to have internet connectivity on the road via Bluetooth -> mobile phone connections. Using a Bluetooth WAP, you can get the connectivity at the office or home.

        In a class 2( 10meter ) configuration, you'll typically get 4x longer runtime than WiFi. Security becomes less of a problem because it's security-by-proximity( you can see who's trying to break in ). Heck, you want a secure meeting with wireless connectivity? Put a Class 3( 1-3meter) WAP in the middle of the meeting table.

        IMHO, WiFi should be the secondary wireless system and Bluetooth the primary one.

        LoB
        • I can use wifi on my handheld just fine. HAH! I'm not lying either. Nice little CF card, and I can tap away for a couple of hours minimum (that's continuous use). External battery sleeves make it easy to stay powered yet free, or I could always plug in if I needed.

  • Economist (Score:3, Informative)

    by jaaron ( 551839 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:08PM (#5537919) Homepage
    The Economist [economist.com] has a set of related articles [economist.com] in this week's edition.
  • Voice over IP, over Wifi. There are some companies acctually planning this for mobile phones. Is anyone aware of this?

    What does this mean for the future of telephone companies? When can I call from Boston to london at less than $1.50 per min?

    • I'm doing consultant work for a company pushing this kind of technology. Think of this: VoIP over WIFI; Video over WIFI; hotspots transmitting video to palms in Starbucks....watch your favorite shows while sipping a coffee...
      • WiFi in a handheld is dumb. Dumb because it doesn't work but for a very short period.

        Go ahead and use WiFi on your handheld at Starbucks before your next meeting. Any more than 30 minutes of use and you had better hope you don't need your handheld for much of the meeting. Or it's a short meeting. I guess you could bring your battery charger with you to the meeting. ;/

        Makes a good demo but implementation/use is not there.

        LoB
  • It's interesting to notice that none of the articles mentions anything about the Personal Telco wireless project in Portland, Oregon. This is a grass roots effort to provide limited free access to wireless
    internet in parts of Portland, Oregon.

    I also know that there are similar efforts going
    on in other cities.

    I also did not notice (it could be there as I only
    skimmed the articles) anything about the war-chalking that goes on in some areas to identify places where one can get a wireless session.

    Mark
  • From one of the artivles:

    "Former Napster aficionados are wirelessly linking their PCs to their stereos to better enjoy their MP3 collections."

    And how are they doing just that? Is there some kind of WiFi gear I can plug in my Amp's audio input? ... fooling it that it's receiving a signal from a CD/radio/tape or something?


  • Could someone tell me what exactly does "Wi-Fi" stand for?
  • To get to wi-fi bliss, we have to pass through an old regulatory morass. Time for some revolutionary ideas for radio regulation [galbithink.org]!
  • i fsckin hate sprint. look at this quote:,br> With wireless local number portability, it will be a very confusing process. Plus, the investment the industry is making to implement this is more than $1 billion. The more we focus on government mandates like this, the less we can focus on improving our customer care and quality of service.

    that's sprint's way of saying that they would much rather keep you locked into your phone number with them, which i have seen keep people around even when they hate spr

  • Are there any WAPs out there which have a built-in VPN server?

    Just curious...
  • cnn [cnn.com] also have an article about wireless technology.

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