| [General] Say good-bye to Free WiFi I don't think this will be a rant but you tell me if it goes that far.
Yesterday was the launch of Republic Wireless. For those of you living in a non-tech cave it's the introduction of (yet another) hybrid cellular/wifi service. The idea is to push wifi usage and fall back to cellular where wifi is not available.
This is the beginning of the end of free wifi. This might be the first blow to people that don't secure their access points as well (they're going to want to secure them after their neighbor is doing all their phone calls on their network).
Imagine a world where 10% of people pick up a Republic Wireless phone and wander around randomly picking up open wifi signals. Panera, Starbucks, McDonald's and the like are going to see this as a major hit to their service. Free wifi to the average laptop/tablet/smartphone user for browsing is one thing. Having 50 people in your store using that same free wifi for all VoIP traffic is obviously different. That bandwidth is going to suffer. The VoIP quality is going to suffer. The user(s) in the free wifi zone are going to be driven away by obnoxious phone users as well as no bandwidth left to use for data.
The copper of the past is migrating to the air of the future. No free wifi provider is going to be willing to upgrade their bandwidth to handle the masses using it for free (cheap) phone service. It's a low monthly hit to the business to pay for a T1 or other low grade internet service to satisfy the data users but it's not cheap to get that upgraded to handle all the new found VoIP traffic from phones.
I realize that Google has been doing this for awhile but that's for the tech heavy/savvy users. Republic Wireless aims to change this and make it available to everyone. This will put a new charge into the space for users to have wifi enabled phones. Corporations that provide guest/free wifi at the office are going to be squashing that VoIP traffic. The businesses providing that free wifi today are either going to lock down the Republic Wireless VoIP traffic or they're going to have to charge for it.
Will Republic Wireless change the world of cell usage? Absolutely. Will there be others that are going to have to start charging for things to handle that offset of the $19/month service? Absolutely.
The way I see it this is the beginning of the end of free wi-fi. Oh...and don't expect those mass transit services (airlines, railways, etc) to service that VoIP traffic either. There will either be a huge increase in their fees or there's going to be a huge lockdown in usage. |
|
|
|
| BS.
All the 3 users potentially jumping on wifi will use few tens of kbps. YAWN. Not to mention that most free wifi locations require accepting TOS before allowing connections - so no jumping straight on wifi. Double yawn. |
|
 DarkLogixPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | reply to BullyRED
or some people might setup free wifi so they can spy on those people
haha |
|
 GbcueAlmost P.E.Premium
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA
kudos:8 | reply to BullyRED
Free Wi-Fi is not going anywhere. |
|
 dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | said by Gbcue:Free Wi-Fi is not going anywhere.
it has here. 5 years ago i had six open or WEP options.
4 disappeared and the two i can still see are WPA2
--
Oh YES! let me drop everything i'm doing regardless of who it affects to deal with your petty little problem! |
|
 The PigBazinaPremium
join:2009-09-11 | reply to BullyRED
I never use unsecure connections! |
|
 Dude111An Awesome DudePremium
join:2003-08-04
USA
kudos:10
 ·Time Warner VOIP
| reply to BullyRED
quote:
This is the beginning of the end of free wifi. This might be the first blow to people that don't secure their access points as well (they're going to want to secure them after their neighbor is doing all their phone calls on their network).
Especailly if they dont have UNLIMITED usage! |
|
DarkLogixPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | The people that have open WiFI are slowly learning to fix their ways and stop being ignorant. |
|
dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | reply to Dude111
said by Dude111: quote:
This is the beginning of the end of free wifi. This might be the first blow to people that don't secure their access points as well (they're going to want to secure them after their neighbor is doing all their phone calls on their network).
Especailly if they dont have UNLIMITED usage! I think this is why the ones in my area that were formerly "linksys" are now secured.
--
Oh YES! let me drop everything i'm doing regardless of who it affects to deal with your petty little problem! |
|
dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | reply to DarkLogix
said by DarkLogix:The people that have open WiFI are slowly learning to fix their ways and stop being ignorant.
Specially when it starts costing them money or gets them a nastygram from their provider.
--
Oh YES! let me drop everything i'm doing regardless of who it affects to deal with your petty little problem! |
|
 SeleniaI love DebianPremium
join:2006-09-22
Lanesboro, MA
kudos:2
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·AT&T Wireless Br..
·Verizon Wireless..
| reply to BullyRED
Re: [General] Say good-bye to Free WiFi LOL. Get some technical facts about VOIP before assuming the sky is falling. Take my phone setup on my Android, for example. I am very nice to the free wifi spot when using VOIP. I use the SIP protocol using the TCP modification for firewalls. This uses 1 TCP connection on 1 port. A ring is sent as a tiny packet listing rtp ports to try and use for the voice stream. These are UDP streams that stream 11kbps(1.375 KB/sec) each way using the Speex codec. No tcp overhead. No connections for their router to track as it's UDP. So, I use less connections than a web browser. Use less bandwidth. Less overhead for their hardware, as the state table isn't tracking multiple TCP connections, typically done by browsers. A codec they may likely use, GSM, typically streams at 13kbps each way, not much higher than Speex. We're not talking peer to peer VOIP, like Skype. That is a whole other beast.
--
A fool thinks they know everything.
A wise person knows enough to know they couldn't possibly know everything.
There are zealots for every OS, like every religion. They do not represent the majority of users for either. |
|
 freezeI'm not even GreekPremium
join:2001-05-13
Ohio
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to DarkLogix
Re: said by DarkLogix:The people that have open WiFI are slowly learning to fix their ways and stop being ignorant.
Or routers are coming secured by default now. |
|
 pnjunctionTeksavvy ExtremePremium
join:2008-01-24
Toronto, ON
kudos:1 | reply to Selenia
Re: [General] Say good-bye to Free WiFi Agree it is a very small amount of traffic per user.
Residential unsecure wifi was not what I consider 'free wifi', although people could use it as such. Now it is disappearing as routers come secured and people are forced to figure out how to use it that way.
I see more businesses adding free wifi, not less. McDs recently added to all of their locations here. There are murmors Tim Horton's will get it, probably to compete more against the higher-end chains. »www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201111···-111111/
The 'gloom and doom' scenario of hundreds of people trying to make calls on a hot spot is unlikely. First the range is pretty small. I have to stand right in front of McDs on yonge street to use it. Second there are 'gateway' type pages with an acknowledgment before it will work. This is easily clicked on but it doesn't happen automatically so it won't be just picking up every user that walks by. (Actually for this reason I keep wifi disabled when I'm away from home, dropping the HSPA signal to pick up a wifi that doesn't have connectivity until you acknowledge means no internet connection at all until I check on the phone!) |
|
KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | reply to dvd536
Re: said by dvd536:said by DarkLogix:The people that have open WiFI are slowly learning to fix their ways and stop being ignorant.
Specially when it starts costing them money or gets them a nastygram from their provider. or gets them sued by the MAFIAA's extortion squad because someone torrented a movie.
--
[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports |
|
Reviews:
·Millenicom
·AT&T Southeast
·Verizon Wireless..
| reply to BullyRED
Re: [General] Say good-bye to Free WiFi I think cellular/mobile ISPs will eventually offer deals to businesses that agree to handle WiFi traffic. AT&T might offer all businesses that agree to handle WiFi traffic a 50% rate cut for all AT&T wired and cellular lines the business has. Or they can just make straight payments for 50% of the ISP bill that the business has. The cellular carriers realize that getting as much traffic off their cellular network as possible helps keep the cellular network clear for those who need the ability to use it while they are in fast motion. A person sitting in Dave's Despicable Diner, watching videos/surfing the WWW/doing video calls, while eating dumplings, does not need to be on a mobile connection. An excellent WiFi connection would be far better. |
|
TheMGPremium
join:2007-09-04
Canada
kudos:1 Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
| reply to BullyRED
said by BullyRED:Free wifi to the average laptop/tablet/smartphone user for browsing is one thing. Having 50 people in your store using that same free wifi for all VoIP traffic is obviously different. That bandwidth is going to suffer. The VoIP quality is going to suffer. The user(s) in the free wifi zone are going to be driven away by obnoxious phone users as well as no bandwidth left to use for data.
VoIP streams require very little bandwidth. You could fit 16 high-quality VoIP streams in 1Mbps of upload bandwidth.
If there's a lack of bandwidth, it's likely the voice calls that will suffer first anyways. I doubt Starbucks, McDonald's, etc, have implemented QoS to prioritize VoIP traffic. |
|
SeleniaI love DebianPremium
join:2006-09-22
Lanesboro, MA
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·AT&T Wireless Br..
·Verizon Wireless..
1 edit | Highest I see for SIP is 64kbps or 8 KB/sec and that is what usually PCM runs at with full encode rates. "HD" codecs are usually that or less. Much more than 11 could fit, unless it's p2p VOIP like Skype, which is obviously not the model used by Republic Wireless. It makes sense they'll probably use GSM. The devices will already have licensed it for the cell radio and it's very low bandwidth to boot(13 kbps, which would fit close to 80 streams at decent quality with 1 mbit, provided the router could handle 80 users). I use SIP in my examples because it's a simple, pure streaming to the PoP type of protocol and remniscent of what many hardline VOIP providers use.
Edit: VOIP traffic takes highest QoS priority on both my home network and the one I setup at work(can't have the execs complaining about dropped conference network). Next one down at home is a few online games I avidly play. Usually prioitizing the TCP connections used is enough as UDP is merely forwarded if received, with no checksums, overhead, tracked connection states, or retransmissions. Most UDP apps use little bandwidth and cost almost nothing in hardware resources. With SIP, I prioritize and trigger the control port on TCP and UDP. The trigger opens the rest of the ports. This can be done even on home gear pretty easily and seems to assure SIP works well, even on busy NATed wireless networks. On public APs not so optimally configured, I use pbxes.org's free service, which allows using them as your proxy 2000 minutes per month. They use tricks to help with mobile connections and work over NAT. Them allowing a TCP control port and using mods to Asterix allows them to work flawless over 3G, too. Only APs that didn't work were ones I could hardly even web browse on, to begin with.
--
A fool thinks they know everything.
A wise person knows enough to know they couldn't possibly know everything.
There are zealots for every OS, like every religion. They do not represent the majority of users for either. |
|
| reply to dvd536
said by dvd536:said by Gbcue:Free Wi-Fi is not going anywhere.
it has here. 5 years ago i had six open or WEP options. 4 disappeared and the two i can still see are WPA2 Those were NOT "free" WiFi but insecure connections, two completely different things.
Everyone should learn how to secure their wireless setup, or have someone do it for them.
In my neighborhood there used to be about a dozen open connections, now all of them are either hidden and/or locked down. |
|
SeleniaI love DebianPremium
join:2006-09-22
Lanesboro, MA
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·AT&T Wireless Br..
·Verizon Wireless..
| Some people are crazy. I notice an insecure AP signal that has pretty good strength at my house. Same SSID and MAC as one that used to be secured for ages. Why anyone would suddenly unsecure their AP after running it secured for a long period is beyond me! |
|
| said by Selenia:Some people are crazy. I notice an insecure AP signal that has pretty good strength at my house. Same SSID and MAC as one that used to be secured for ages. Why anyone would suddenly unsecure their AP after running it secured for a long period is beyond me!
i ran mine unsecured for a while when i needed to troubleshoot why the heck i couldnt get a WII connected (after entering that key a dozen times with that wiimote ). after getting that little issue taken care of i placed it back secured (WPA2-PSK [AES]) . i can "see" about 5 wifi networks from my place all but one are secured. |
|
