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Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

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Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#131

Post by benlower »

Verizon has paid many billions of dollars to license spectrum over the years. It is in their business interest to charge customers $10 per GB of data while offloading the traffic onto free spectrum. Qualcomm wants to sell millions of new chips that will be required to power this new scenario.

It would be extremely unwise to let them push LTE-U thru without lots of independent testing and analysis. Even then there is a case to be made for keeping some spectrum 'open' and unlicensed lest we see it all end up owned by a handful of corporations.

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#132

Post by qb45 »

legulere wrote: post #127
sithadmin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just adds to the 2.4gHz channel congestion hell. Pretty much everywhere I've lived in the past 3 years, 2.4gHz has been nearly unusable.

I'm sad that wifi-blocking wallpaper seems to have never taken off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_wallpaper

That's a cool tech. If it really provides decent attenuation of WiFi without affecting other radios I think it may still take off in the future. There will be a point when 2.4GHz WiFi doesn't work anymore at all.

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#133

Post by gst »

qb45 wrote: post #132
legulere wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad that wifi-blocking wallpaper seems to have never taken off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_wallpaper

That's a cool tech. If it really provides decent attenuation of WiFi without affecting other radios I think it may still take off in the future. There will be a point when 2.4GHz WiFi doesn't work anymore at all .

How do you get to this conclusion? The density is probably not going to get much higher than it is already, but the technology is going to continue to improve.

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#134

Post by camkego »

homulilly wrote: post #90
jhallenworld wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the good news is that LTE-U appears to be for the 5 GHz band, not 2.4 GHz. You would think that it would be easier to put micro cells in the home gateways (using the bands they already own) vs. rolling out a new capabilities on the 5 GHz band in the client (I mean won't they have to wait for Apple/Android to switch to a new generation of chips?). I guess the bad feeling is that the unlicensed bands would be used…

considering 2.4ghz is basically unusable where i live this isn't really good news.

This.

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#135

Post by WorldMaker »

shostack wrote: post #122
WorldMaker wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the other answers many of the ISPs provide their hardware on essentially a rental model. The benefit to that is that if you complain loud enough they'll replace it on their dime: the detriment is the same as with any rental though, typically they overcharge you versus what you would pay if you bought it yourself. Your mileage will probably vary, but I've certainly saved money in the long run owning my…

Another consideration is that often they will try to use the fact that you don't use their hardware as an excuse to not go further in troubleshooting since they "don't support 3rd party hardware."

It's fun when you get the opposite too and they follow their support scripts regardless of your 3rd party hardware and above average knowledge of the subject:

Support: On your hardware, do x.

Me: Did it already. It reported "Y".

Support: Please do it again, following these scripted steps [what don't match my actual hardware]...

[I pretend to follow along.]

Me: Done. It reported "Y".

Support: Oh, well then...

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#136

Post by qb45 »

benlower wrote: post #131

Verizon has paid many billions of dollars to license spectrum over the years. It is in their business interest to charge customers $10 per GB of data while offloading the traffic onto free spectrum. Qualcomm wants to sell millions of new chips that will be required to power this new scenario. It would be extremely unwise to let them push LTE-U thru without lots of independent testing and analysis. Even then there is…

> Even then there is a case to be made for keeping some spectrum 'open' and unlicensed lest we see it all end up owned by a handful of corporations.

I think this is the important point. Let cell carriers in and they will subscribe as many people as necessary to fill the available bandwidth. After all, that's pretty much what they are paid for.

It's like road congestion - the amount of suffering depends on people's tolerance to endure suffering, not on the amount of available resource. There will always be more people willing to watch lolcat videos on their phones if they don't stutter too badly.

Keeping some spectrum aside from big operators allows at least small LANs to operate reasonably, while opening it to them may easily end up bringing suffering to everyone.

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#138

Post by boyaka »

gsteinb88 wrote: post #124
mirimir wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, some of us live in homes with rooms and walls, and so 5GHz is pretty useless.

...5 GHz WiFi is more than capable of going through walls. In fact, 802.11ac has significant improvements to multipath rejection, meaning it should perform better in environments with many reflections than the protocols that offer 2.4GHz operation. Which is not to say you may not have had a bad experience with 5 GHz routers/access points -- there are plenty of commercial APs that are frankly terribly designed.

More capable than 2.4GHz? It's not so much about reflections, but going through solid objects. I imagined the larger wavelength of 2.4GHz dissipates less when travelling through solid objects, but this is hardly scientific. I also read stuff from internet searches that seemed to confirm this, but I don't remember nor have a link to a scientific explanation.

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#139

Post by dogma1138 »

mikecb wrote: post #13

That comcast is part of this coalition is hilarious. My apartment building is flooded by xfinitywifi beacons, in addition to each subscribers private SSIDs. Why they insist on turning on this functionality even in urban environments boggles the mind.

Buy RF blocking window film if you are having so many issues. http://www.slt.co/Products/RFShieldingWindowFilm/RFWindowFil...

There's also a wallpaper (and even paint) version of this which isn't terrible expensive if you are living in an apartment building with exterior dry walls instead of concrete.

This is pretty much the "civilian" version of stuff government agencies use to RF proof undercover sites which could not be fitted with active jamming, it works extremely well.

I have one in the bedroom put it on because BT set up one of their metro wifi towers in line of sight of the window, it also blocks all the other wifi SSID's from outside.

Re: Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

#140

Post by Tiksi »

indlebe wrote: post #48
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes things look more crowded, but unless people are actually using the Comcast WiFi it isn't actually adding to congestion. The periodic SSID beacons are an annoyance but they use negligible bandwidth. That said, don't ever use an ISP provided access point.

>That said, don't ever use an ISP provided access point. Because the hardware is often inferior to what you can pick up for ~$200 at a tech store, not to mention the lack of control you get with an ISP AP.

Slightly off topic, but I was surprised to find that my fios provided modem/router/AP gave me a root shell out of the box, and actiontec has the full toolchain to build for it published.

http://paste.click/QEYrXr (Note the uid/gid)

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