[NTLK] [OT]: wireless data Re: Re - Strength in numbers

From: Andrew Beals (bandy_at_cinnamon.com)
Date: Mon Jan 14 2002 - 20:37:02 EST


On Tue, 15 Jan 2002 01:18:00 +0100, doppler <doppler_at_mac.com> wrote:
>
> Andrew Beals [bandy_at_cinnamon.com] wrote the following 2002-01-14 23.45:
>
> > Wireless access has been done -- only it's either very expensive [& your =
> ISP
> > folds: Ricochet/Metricom!] or it is painfully slow [surf the web at over
> > FOURTEEN THOUSAND BAUD!] and extremely expensive [cellular data per-minut=
> e
> > "service"] and doesn't work everywhere or it only works when you're on-si=
> te
> > [802.11b] and near wall power and a network jack anyway.
>
> only part of this is true:
>
> 1. what is expensive? is there an alternative to metricom really? not with
> the same feature set - hence it is probably a reasonable price if you think
> about the value added. if there are few alternatives to a certain service,
> the price is not arguable ;-D also, remember someone will always have to pa=
> y
> the "early adopter tax".

In my case, a $349.95 radio modem which is now worth bupkis.

Expensive is something that doesn't provide service worth what you pay for it.

Ricochet was $40/month ... about the same as my aDSL line at home. It worked
98% of the time I wanted to use it. That's hard to beat!

> 2. what is slow? at HSCSD, you get 42.3k/s in four time laps, which is more
> than you can get out from most GPRS netw=F6rkz. GSM has superior coverage and
> all that too, which means its optimal in most cases. a portable device is
> not supposed to be "always on" - it will drain the batts, so GSM is fine
> with me for so long. with GSM youre always reachable, if the sending part
> takes one more minute or so, its not a big issue, really.

GSM data here [California, USA] is charged on a per-minute basis -- on the
order of US$0.40 per minute or fractional part thereof. Plus an extra
surcharge to your monthly bill.

My typical (short!) Ricochet session was on the order of 1.5Mb of data d/l'ed.
 When the P*lm VII came out with the 50k/month service level as "more than
most would need", I had to laugh.

Omni"Sky" [using the two-way pager network] has gone Tango Uniform, and
Earthlink is selling just Blackberry [glorified 2-way pager] service.

One of the wireless data providers will sell you service at $80/month ... at
GSM rates [14.4 MAX], so long as you fork over $400 for a magic modem card.
AND promise to keep the service for a year.

The prospect of "14.4" service on an already-oversubscribed network [and my
provider is the least offender in that category] just doesn't float my boat.
Ricochet was most of the time the full-blown 19.2k ... I didn't often set up
near a poletop that someone else was already using.

> (BTW, when it
> comes to fax class III its always 9600bps, even with new equipment.)

I don't communicate in real-time with fax. I definitely don't log in to the
office with fax.

What is slow? Lessee ... anything slower than 19.2k [Ricochet speed] banging
raw text around is slow. A Ricochet modem plus a P*lm plus TopGun ssh
software meant I could login to the office from the hospital while my wife was
getting an outpatient procedure.

A directly-connected 128k connection is slow for doing graphical X apps, but
not too slow to run exmh over. [Like right now.]

A T1-speed link [my aDSL downlink rate] is slow when d/l'ing a movie or a
damaged MP3 file. For anything else, T1 is blazingly fast.

The 10baseT in my house is fast.

The T3 at the office is very very fast - I almost never notice anyone hogging
all the bandwidth. [9/11/2001 being the exception]

Oh and since we're talking radio, TCP/IP over a 1200bps X.25-ish network is
horribly slow. So slow it makes my brain hurt when I think about trying to
use it. [PK-88 anyone?]

> 3. what is short range? if you work in and travel between places with vivid
> hotspot networks set up to handover and roaming, this is not an issue.

Anything that doesn't work while I'm waiting for my oil to be changed, or
while I'm slamming lunch or pulled into a parking lot so I can see what the
page I just got is *really* about is short-range. If I tried hard, I could
probably hit the 802.11b in my office from my favorite Pho joint across the
street.

> wors=
> e
> though, is that the WIFI cards tend to drain even the most powerful cells.

That's what the car adaptor is for!

        andy

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