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YAWDS: Yet Another Wireless Disaster Story
Submitted by acohill on Sun, 09/09/2007 - 16:39.
Yet another muni WiFi project has foundered on the rocks of NoBusinessModel. WiFi vendors don't mind overselling the benefits of free WiFi, because their business model usually involves getting the local government to take all the risk. In some cases, local governments are putting up hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for WiFi systems that have yet to prove themselves.
In other cases, the service provider may put up most of the equipment, but gets an exclusive franchise, meaning no competition and no service alternatives. The companies that thought free WiFi could be supported by ads are finding out that that is a tough business to be in.
Waukesha, Wisconsin can be added to the list ever growing list of cities that have had a wireless service provider pull out because there was no money in free WiFi. Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Houston have all had to pull back on wireless plans recently. St. Cloud, Florida has been trying to give away free WiFi service to residents with little success; residents have complained that the wireless system is slow and unreliable compared to fee-based copper systems (DSL and cable).
Wireless services have a place in every community. We all want our wireless devices (phones, iPhones, PDAs, etc.) to work wherever we are. But wireless by itself is an incomplete solution. With countries like Japan rapidly building out 100 megabit fiber systems, having only low speed wireless is not going to help a community's economic development future.
foundering wifi
How many people need 100 mb fiber capabilites? I guess all those people calculating weather patterns, doing nuclear weapon blast pattern analysis, or simulating the world economic development through the year 2100.
For 99% of the world wifi speeds are adequate. I do everything I need and play internet games with large graphics demands just fine on my slow wireless thats FREE.
Its the model that needs the most attention. The technology is fine, its young and needs to mature.
The need for speed
While the current speed of WiFi may satisfy the needs of some users today, some communities want to accelerate economic development, help their existing businesses to remain competitive, and create new job and work opportunities for residents.
Community investments in telecom infrastructure must be based on future needs, not current needs, or the investments will be quickly obsolete. Just in the past ten years, the typical "useful" bandwidth for residential and small business use has increased by an order of magnitude, from around 50 kilobits (dial up) to 500 kilobits (DSL, cable modem).
What is driving bandwidth is not just email and Web surfing, but a converged telecom environment where that 100 megabit fiber connection will provide not just 5-10 megabits of Internet access for the home or small business, but also telephone services and video services. It is video that is driving the bandwidth requirements, and many businesses are already using HD business videoconferencing systems--these systems require 40-50 megabits of bandwidth for a simple two location business conference.
The average American home has 3.5 televisions, and so you have to design a telecom infrastructure that supports three channels of HD television to a single home, or about 60 megabits of bandwidth (18-20 megabits per channel for MPEG2 HD video).
Community investments in telecom need to look to the future to protect the investment.
current speeds adequate ... for what?
In 1899 Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office Charles H. Duell was quoted saying "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
In 1943, Thomas Watson, the first president of IBM is quoted as saying: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
In a 1977 speech, Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment stated: “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
In 1981, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft declared that: “640,000 bytes of memory ought to be enough for anybody.”
So tell me, how many simultaneous High-def channels can you send over your current wifi connection? Not just to your computer, but what about others that are sharing your access point?
Can you back up and restore your entire hard drive to a remote storage facility over your current wifi connection? Maybe...but how long would it take?
Who would have thunk that 320x240 videos on the internet would have driven bandwidth demand? Ever heard of Youtube? How about a High-def youtube or even DVD quality?
To state that to 99% of the world that current speeds are adequate is very short sited. Nobody can predict what sorts of services will be made available over much higher speed wired and wireless networks in the next 5-10 years.
I can't predict the future either, but my guess is that when the next (or the next after that) generation of high-def MMORPGs arrive, your current wireless connection won't be adequate.