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A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

arstechnica.com

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Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#211

Post by KRuchan »

douche wrote: post #86
bsenftner wrote: post #10

My day to day happiness quotient shot up the day I ditched my wireless wifi and ran Ethernet cables through my spaces. I'd realized I was constantly noticing wifi issues, and an apple mbp I use for email seems to drop wifi every half hour. But no longer, with them all wired up! Realizing there are USB3 to Ethernet gadgets really hits home how our modern technology is market-driven-dumb and anti-consumer: all modern l…

> all modern laptops don't even have Ethernet ports anymore! Surely things haven't gotten this insane outside the iFruitbasket? If so I'm going to have to stock up on upgradeable refurbished laptops...

You can get USB->Ethernet adapters.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#212

Post by Klathmon »

raphyduck wrote: post #119
extra88 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to google it, it sounds selfish when the trouble is caused by many neighbors having their own APs nearby.

Doesn't it enhance to the problem further though? (if yes, then yes, wifi kinda sucks)

not really, as I believe any router that uses more than one channel at once must disable that feature if there are any other APs that are trying to use any of those channels.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#213

Post by askvictor »

digler999 wrote: post #150
Klathmon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live about 1/4 mile away from any other houses, and I never got why people always complained about wifi. In my experience it always worked well, was fairly fullproof, and had fast enough speeds that it was never an issue. 2 years ago I moved into a condo that has 25 wifi APs within range of me right now. Now I get it. Getting one of the high-end tri-band routers as you said did help, but it's still a diffic…

If they haven't done so already, maybe we'll see copper-clad drywall or flooring for such environments ? Guess that would take down cellular service too though.

Also, copper is pretty expensive. A mesh of cheaper metal should do the job; might even be possible to tune it to the right frequency so you don't block cellphones, but I don't know

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#214

Post by lucb1e »

zaroth wrote: post #81
Pxtl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you're connected wifi is great. It's the long connection negotiation and the slow reconnection process if it gets interrupted or you switch networks that's infuriating. I get upwards of a minute of downtime when I switch from my router to my AP at home.

Virtually none of the handoff delay is actually due to L1 or L2. The PHY handoff itself can happen in less than 10ms, and with Pre-Auth that handoff is actually happening before you even leave one AP for another.

I've always wondered about this, but given how slow WiFi connects I assumed it impossible. But with this new information....

You're saying that in a train, if I do a track once and connect to every open network (assuming no captive portal) and obtain DHCP offers, thereby obtaining IP subnet information and being able to guess an unoccupied IP address later, I can connect to the networks on my way back and get responses from a remote server to one or two packets?

Say there is about 20m of track where a given router is in range (train won't be running that close to the building and there is a wall in between) and we're doing 130km/h, that gives me about 20/(130/3.6)=0.56 seconds of range time. A server within the same country (the Netherlands) is usually <40ms RTT on any network, so PHY+SYN+data+responses = 10+40+40=90ms, easily in range of 560ms. A tricky part is knowing when I'm in range (I shouldn't wait for a beacon), but with GPS and triangulation of beacons it shouldn't be hard to figure out where each AP is and when I'm in range. Worst case I have to do the track a few times to get enough beacons to see where signal starts and stops.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#215

Post by d33 »

jradd wrote: post #93
d33 wrote: post #2

It also sucks from the security point of view even the problems could in most cases be fixed with solutions known to the current state of cryptography: https://github.com/d33tah/call-for-wpa3

* True, but I doubt anybody is going to sniff my wireless, force me to de–auth and capture the 4–way handshake which she saves to crack offline in the comfort of her home, using cloud computing or gpu's. [0] * The WPS attack doesn't work with every router that supports it, but allows for an easy way to compromise most modern routers. [1] * RADIUS/EAP-TTLS is still rock solid. We all know WEP has already been broken a…

She doesn't necessarily have to go offline given that everyone has a phone with internet access nowadays. Also, with week passwords, dictionary attacks, rainbow tables etc you might actually get compromised in minutes. And instead of de-auth, she might just as well wait.

As for "I doubt anybody would do that" - it's not really a good security argument when we have the means easily available.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#216

Post by lucb1e »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #207
jedberg wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost certainly a microwave or cordless phone. I still forget sometimes and knock out my own wireless with a microwave.

It's definitely not mine. The effect is crazy tho. I wanna at least find a way to find the source/direction of it.

apt-get install wavemon

I love that tool. Tells me signal strength and quality (i.e. how much noise there is). Actually, opening it now, I see there has been an update and it has gained two new indicators. Used it multiple times to find APs. Also works on laptops (though a smartphone is much more handy to walk around with).

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#217

Post by stsp »

hchenji wrote: post #192
Filligree wrote: post #3

This article is all about unwrapping the marketing copy and explaining why it sucks. That's still valuable, but I was hoping for a more technical view on it. Anyone have an article that explains why the systems are as limited as they are?

See my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13793876 . I suggest reading Andrea Goldsmith's or Pramod Vishwanath's book on Wireless Communication. If not, Intro to Communication Systems by Madhow is recommended.

These look nice but they focus on the physical layer.

Do you happen to know any useful English literature that covers the MAC layer of modern wifi standards (n, ac, ax)? Apart from the 802.11 standards, of course.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#218

Post by lucb1e »

xbryanx wrote: post #120

What software tools do people use (OS X, Linux, Windows) to test out and debug wifi connections?

On GNU/Linux (either Android/Cyanogenmod or Debian) I use wavemon. It's just an apt-get away and tells me more than I can understand (which is fairly rare, especially compared to Android apps which are universally underwhelming).

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#219

Post by lucb1e »

tdy721 wrote: post #58

I think it's getting Bits and Bytes a little mixed up. You can expect about 1/10th speed? Most file transfer dialogs I've seen ("real world"?) display transfer rate in Bytes. Advertisers use bits, that little marketing wave can actually explain the speed drop to 1/8th of the "advertised" rate.

That's not what this is about. After converting the manufacturer's bit speeds to bytes or after converting every other tool on the planet's byte speeds to bits, you still get lower performance than the packaging claimed.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#220

Post by ksec »

Is there any reason why we cant use LTE as a standard for Wi-Fi use case? So we have in house LTE Router with Wired connection, and when you are out of range you are still LTE with your carriers. This is not LTE-U in Rel12 or LAA in Rel 13, which both require a functioning LTE connection as Anchor point.

WiFi used to be good in 3G / WCDMA days, but i think the appearance of LTE with constant innovation and advance in both carrier and phone maker has made the LTE experience so much better. And it will only get better with LTE Advance Pro and 5G.

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