Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

gigaom.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 51 posts

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#31

Post by ef4 »

jessriedel wrote: post #8

> “For example a cellular picocell costs from $7,500 to $15,000 whereas a much higher capacity carrier-grade Wi-Fi access point costs around $2,000,” Thanki wrote. “The cost of a Wi-Fi chipset for a consumer device is around $5, whereas 3G cellular chipsets costs around $30. Won't a cell tower cover at least a couple orders of magnitude more area than a wifi access point? Is this analysis silly or am I missing someth…

By that argument, you could also just build one extremely powerful tower and cover a vast region. But that would support far less data, because everyone in the region would be waiting for a turn to broadcast at the same frequency.

This is why cellular phones are called cellular phones. The key enabling technology was the ability to divide a large geographic area into many smaller cells. Each cell needs to use different frequencies than its neighboring cells, but you can reuse the same frequencies many times across the wider region.

The smaller you make the cells, the more data you can pack into the same set of frequencies, because non-neighboring cells can be using the same frequency concurrently.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#32

Post by randomdata »

mkaltenecker wrote: post #16
aggronn wrote: post #7

I almost never use wi-fi on my phone. It drains the battery too much. edit: I'm not familiar with cellular hardware tech. My observation is true for my phone, necessarily, because my 3G reciever is active 100% of the time, and turning on wifi is just turning on another component. If this isn't the case for you, do you turn off your 3/4G while you're in a wifi spot? Does it manager this all automatically? Do you have…

That seems unlikely. WiFi should certainly drain your battery less than cellular. (I have yet to jump on the smartphone train but my iPad gets consistent 7 hours with 3G, 10 hours with WiFi.)

There is, however, a cost in searching for WiFi networks every time you want to make a connection.

I imagine it becomes most apparent if your device is polling for email. On every interval it needs to wake up, turn on WiFi, look for any available networks, discover there are none and then finally revert to the cellular network. With WiFi disabled, it can go straight to cell.

The iPhones were famously bad for this in the early days, though they seem to improve later on; either through a hardware or software update, I'm not sure which.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#33

Post by evandena »

bartonfink wrote: post #28
josefresco wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it work in the car?

My understanding (I signed up for their beta but opted not to sign a contract) is that their service switches over to cellular network when wifi isn't available. I seem to remember them saying that they could maintain a telephone conversation through that switch, but I've not used their service so have no real-world data. In a car, I'd assume you'll be using a cellular network (Sprint if I remember correctly). They u…

I'm pretty sure they switched their stance on "too much" termination.

Also, I believe while on a call you can transfer off of wifi, but not on to it.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#34

Post by jessriedel »

cdash wrote: post #15
jessriedel wrote: post #8

> “For example a cellular picocell costs from $7,500 to $15,000 whereas a much higher capacity carrier-grade Wi-Fi access point costs around $2,000,” Thanki wrote. “The cost of a Wi-Fi chipset for a consumer device is around $5, whereas 3G cellular chipsets costs around $30. Won't a cell tower cover at least a couple orders of magnitude more area than a wifi access point? Is this analysis silly or am I missing someth…

Well he said a picocell which is around an order of magnitude greater range. I am not sure that range is the most important thing as towers become more and more congested I am pretty sure we are moving to smaller and smaller ranges.

>Well he said a picocell which is around an order of magnitude greater range [than a WiFi access point].

Ahh, yea, this is the key point. For those who aren't in the know: "A picocell is a small cellular basestation typically covering a small area, such as in-building (offices, shopping malls, train stations, stock exchanges, etc.), or more recently in-aircraft. In cellular networks, picocells are typically used to extend coverage to indoor areas where outdoor signals do not reach well, or to add network capacity in areas with very dense phone usage, such as train stations. Picocells provide coverage and capacity in areas difficult or expensive to reach using the more traditional Macrocell approach." [wikipedia]

> I am not sure that range is the most important thing as towers become more and more congested I am pretty sure we are moving to smaller and smaller ranges.

Not where I live in New Mexico :)

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#35

Post by jessriedel »

natrius wrote: post #18
jessriedel wrote: post #8

> “For example a cellular picocell costs from $7,500 to $15,000 whereas a much higher capacity carrier-grade Wi-Fi access point costs around $2,000,” Thanki wrote. “The cost of a Wi-Fi chipset for a consumer device is around $5, whereas 3G cellular chipsets costs around $30. Won't a cell tower cover at least a couple orders of magnitude more area than a wifi access point? Is this analysis silly or am I missing someth…

I think the argument is that a given amount of spectrum has a maximum capacity of data that can be transmitted. Using one cell tower to serve a large area (which means a large number of devices and a large amount of data) caps the amount of data that can be transmitted within that area. There are two solutions to that: use more spectrum or serve smaller areas. If you're serving smaller areas, there are cheaper techno…

I see. So this argument is really only directed at urban areas where there is already total coverage but the bandwidth per user is limited because of congestion.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#36

Post by arikrak »

As the article mentions, the carriers are focused on cellular because that's what they control and can get people to pay $30-80 / month to use their cellular data plans. The carriers' worst nightmare would be if more cities provided quality wifi everywhere. Few would pay for data plans anymore, and maybe not even voice plans either.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#37

Post by arikrak »

Tooluka wrote: post #9

Lol, carriers will never EVER willingly became "simple internet providers". EVER. They will scream and fight to the last dollar for their "right" to provide monopolized "services" - separate voice traffic, separate plaintext traffic, separate image traffic, and other "services". They'll cut and limit all generic internet connections, they'll filter unwanted packets (VoIP, iMessage etc.), they'll reroute traffic throu…

But people might be able to create a wifi alternative without them. E.g. projects that blanket a city with wifi or that share people's routers with others in a secure manner. Then the carriers will be cut out of the picture.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#38

Post by cma »

ef4 wrote: post #31
jessriedel wrote: post #8

> “For example a cellular picocell costs from $7,500 to $15,000 whereas a much higher capacity carrier-grade Wi-Fi access point costs around $2,000,” Thanki wrote. “The cost of a Wi-Fi chipset for a consumer device is around $5, whereas 3G cellular chipsets costs around $30. Won't a cell tower cover at least a couple orders of magnitude more area than a wifi access point? Is this analysis silly or am I missing someth…

By that argument, you could also just build one extremely powerful tower and cover a vast region. But that would support far less data, because everyone in the region would be waiting for a turn to broadcast at the same frequency. This is why cellular phones are called cellular phones. The key enabling technology was the ability to divide a large geographic area into many smaller cells. Each cell needs to use differe…

Also, each tower has many directional antennas, so one tower acts as multiple cells.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#39

Post by imaginator »

Tooluka wrote: post #9

Lol, carriers will never EVER willingly became "simple internet providers". EVER. They will scream and fight to the last dollar for their "right" to provide monopolized "services" - separate voice traffic, separate plaintext traffic, separate image traffic, and other "services". They'll cut and limit all generic internet connections, they'll filter unwanted packets (VoIP, iMessage etc.), they'll reroute traffic throu…

You should check some of the MVNO providers in Germany.

These mobile operators compete on price and anything that smells like custom development of a blah-portal-blah is cut.

There was a time when ISPs used to think the could do value-add crap. Orange-dialup had a news service. BT had a portal and email. Like the ISPs, our carriers will become the fat pipe they fear. Just slower than we'd want.

Re: We already use Wi-Fi more than cellular; Why not continue the trend?

#40

Post by CapitalistCartr »

ef4 wrote: post #31
jessriedel wrote: post #8

> “For example a cellular picocell costs from $7,500 to $15,000 whereas a much higher capacity carrier-grade Wi-Fi access point costs around $2,000,” Thanki wrote. “The cost of a Wi-Fi chipset for a consumer device is around $5, whereas 3G cellular chipsets costs around $30. Won't a cell tower cover at least a couple orders of magnitude more area than a wifi access point? Is this analysis silly or am I missing someth…

By that argument, you could also just build one extremely powerful tower and cover a vast region. But that would support far less data, because everyone in the region would be waiting for a turn to broadcast at the same frequency. This is why cellular phones are called cellular phones. The key enabling technology was the ability to divide a large geographic area into many smaller cells. Each cell needs to use differe…

With analog cellular, yes. With digital cellular, several connections can share a given frequency, somewhat expanding the number of connections per tower, although there is still a limit. However, I find that AT&T ignores the pressing bandwidth needs of the customers. During rush hour, no matter how perfect my signal strength, I get terrible data bandwidth. Its not the cell tower, its the connection from there onward.
Post reply on HN