11 ms·

Wifi is still not a good WAN (municipal) technology. It has never succeeded. Many NYC public parks offer free wifi and I don’t know anyone that uses it. 4G/LTE

Wifi is still not a good WAN (municipal) technology. It has never succeeded. Many NYC public parks offer free wifi and I don’t know anyone that uses it. 4G/LTE/etc is engineered for uncontrolled, outdoor spaces. It works more reliably than Wifi in that environment. Wifi’s UX is poor in that environment – you’re already connected to 4G but connecting to Wifi requires effort. And one assumes that if one is on the street, one will be walking out of range of that Wifi within a few minutes. I don’t understand the use case. (The sitting-in-Starbucks use case makes more sense.) Politicians like the sound of Wifi. Users walking down the street, by and large, ignore it.

kuschku 11y ago
Many cities have free WiFi in whole downtown areas, on many streets. The use case is by now more than fleshed out. Users connect to it once, and done. It’s cheap, fast, and simple. You don’t have to worry about falling back to roaming when you walk out of the range of the network, as your phone automatically stops downloading that huge file as soon as WiFi stops. But most phones have no way to mark a specific 4G network as "good roaming", cheaper than normal.
- Nullabillity 11y ago
  > But most phones have no way to mark a specific 4G network as "good roaming", cheaper than normal. Actually, this doesn't quite seem to be the case. When I went to Denmark a couple of months ago my phone didn't consider it roaming, since I have a contract where I have the same prices there and at home.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Yes, so the network is marked as "equal to normal". Like O2 and eplus do. But there’s no way to mark a network as better than normal. For example, if you connect to WiFi, Android will recognize it as a non-mobile network, and start doing updates, etc. If you start listening to a song via Play Music on WiFi, and then go out of range, it will automatically downgrade the quality, or stop playing and ask you if you want to continue. If you are on "NYC 4G", and go back to your own 4G network, there’s no way for Android to stop streaming that FLAC song, because it doesn’t know a way to tell that one 4G network is equivalent to WiFi, but another is not.
    - mattlutze 11y ago
      > For example, if you connect to WiFi, Android will recognize it as a non-mobile network, and start doing updates, etc. If you start listening to a song via Play Music on WiFi, and then go out of range, it will automatically downgrade the quality, or stop playing and ask you if you want to continue. Since the wi-fi radio is different from the cellular data radio in the phone, it's trivial to set different policies depending on which radio the phone is using. The settings to allow differentiation exist because we know implicitly that a wi-fi connection won't be draining your expensive data plan. The phone doesn't actually look at a connection's bandwidth/signal quality/etc to do this.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        Of course. And you can even use the software to tell it that a specific WiFi network is metered. But you can’t tell it that a 4G network is unmetered.
iancarroll 11y ago
How would connecting to it work? Seems like a much larger usability barrier than connecting to WiFi.
nothrabannosir 11y ago
Minor win: it's fantastic for tourists. Roaming kills, and it's great to have access to free wifi (maps, booking sites, e-mail, messaging, whatsapp calls, &c) in a foreign country.
- santaclaus 11y ago
  Agreed -- Vienna has free wifi (at least in the CBD) and this was awesome when visiting the city.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    And on the Donauinsel! Nothing over drinking with friends at 3am on the Donauinsel and enjoying the free WiFi.
  - lmcnish14 11y ago
    Same for Wellington's waterfront wifi! It was very helpful for quick Skype calls and looking up information, especially when internet anywhere else in the city was very expensive.
- hkmurakami 11y ago
  The Free Wifi in the train stations in Japan has saved my butt on many occasions :)
- ChatSim 11y ago
  If you travel a lot and want to save on roaming costs, try ChatSim! ChatSim is the first sim that lets you exchange unlimited instant messages and emoji, all over the world, using the most popular instant messaging apps, for only 10 euros/year, even without a WiFi connection. ChatSim can connect to the roaming operators, without charging in roaming. You can use: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Telegram, BBM, Line, Kik, Hike, Kakao, and QQi. ChatSim also works with 4G technology. If you want to know more about ChatSim Unlimited, visit our website: http://www.chatsim.com/en http://www.chatsim.com/en
- 746F7475 11y ago
  Major loss when "bad guys" steal all your credentials or is NYC also providing everyone with free VPN?
thescriptkiddie 11y ago
This isn't a substitute for wired municipal internet connections, it's just a sitting-in-starbucks use case that doesn't require you to buy a coffee.
such_a_casual 11y ago
My phone automatically connects to wifi. An amazing use case is the beach. Sitting on the beach, streaming music on my phone via wifi.
- ratsimihah 11y ago
  Or using the internet
vegardx 11y ago
I don't need to do anything to connect to my providers public networks. The keys are (I'm guessing) just stored in the SIM card and I'm automatically connected when there is WiFi available. LTE being super fast and all, I don't mind not using my data plan and having a low latency, high bandwidth connection without even lifting a finger. You also seem to overestimate how many people can afford a data plan like we (probably) have. Or just young people. Or people who don't use the Internet that often at all. It is probably not ment for the average HN-reader.
- russum 11y ago
  >>The keys are (I'm guessing) just stored in the SIM card They're not. They keys (and many other things) are stored in "carrier settings" that your provider pushes to your smartphone. In the past we had to set things up like APN & etc manually for the internet to work but not anymore with the settings being pushed automatically (if the provider supports it). On iOS you can view the current version of pushed settings by seeing the Settings > General > About -> Carrier option. "Carrier settings updates are small files that can include updates from Apple and your carrier to carrier-related settings, such as network, calling, cellular data, messaging, personal hotspot, and voicemail settings". [1] [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201270 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201270
  - vegardx 11y ago
    Ah, even cooler! What I liked about it was how transparent the whole thing was for me. I didn't have to do anything, it just sort of worked.
jws 11y ago
Not everyone can afford cellular or wired Internet. Municipal wifi raises the floor and keeps the most vulnerable connected.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  Are you sure there's a significant set of people who have wifi devices but no data service? I am under the impression that the poor buy data-capable phones over laptops. Even if they can't afford data for their phone, the phone can accept free 4G if it were to be offered.
  - ksml 11y ago
    I'm only one person, but I (and my family) have computers and smartphones but no data. It saves a whole lot of money to be on a prepaid plan when you have wifi in most places you go.
    - jessriedel 11y ago
      Right, but your smart phone is data capable, i.e., can accept a 4G signal. You don't have a dumbphone alongside a computer with wifi. mwsherman's original question was "Why would municipalities offer free wifi rather than free 4G?". jws thought it might be important for folks who didn't have data plans. But my point is that if someone has wifi, they also very likely have a smartphone that's capabale of receiving a 4G signal, even if they cannot afford a data plan from their cell network provider.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        > But my point is that if someone has wifi, they also very likely have a smartphone that's capabale of receiving a 4G signal, even if they cannot afford a data plan from their cell network provider. That's a bit of an assumption. I'd like to see some numbers to support it. I know a bunch of people who have wifi capable devices but not devices capable of 4g. Or they have older smartphones that are not 4g capable.
      - 11y ago
revelation 11y ago
4G/LTE/etc are also impossibly tethered to SIM cards and the greater centralized provider network behind it. If we could just take the MAC layer from 4G/LTE, I'd be with you, but we can't.
sinnet3000 11y ago
The Wi-fi Alliance has created an standard called Hotspot 2.0, which aims to fix "Wifi UX" in these scenarios. From Wikipedia: "The idea is for mobile devices to automatically join a Wi-Fi subscriber service whenever the user enters a Hotspot 2.0 area, in order to provide better bandwidth and services-on-demand to end-users, while also alleviating mobile carrier infrastructure of traffic overheads."
- nitrogen 11y ago
  How does this standard deal with issues like user privacy, rogue hotspots, etc.?
  - gergles 11y ago
    PassPoint uses 802.1x and client certificates/PKI to authenticate. I have the Boingo Wi-Fi service client cert installed on my iPhone and it automatically connects to any -Passpoint network via a WPA2 connection and authenticates with the installed cert. It's really nice for traveling.
lanewinfield 11y ago
It's not just sitting-in: take a stroll around NYC late at night and pass a Starbucks—you'll see many people clinging outside to access their WiFi
ucaetano 11y ago
The issue with LTE is that spectrum is limited. With 30MHz of spectrum, ~2 bps/Hz spectral efficiency and 3 sectors per tower you can provide at most 90Mbps of total downstream capacity per tower. With a density of 10k+ people per km2, a tower serving a one km2 area is easily overloaded. With towers costing hundreds of thousands of USD, things get pretty messy. Wifi doesn't replace LTE, complements it. No doubt that the UX is still crappy, but SIM-based authentication can solve that. Also, unlike LTE, wifi spectrum isn't licensed, anyone can set up a hotspot without paying billions to the government. Sure, we could all solve that by switching the entire world to an unlicensed, pay-as-you-use system, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon. In other words, spectrum is the major constraint in urban areas.
beachstartup 11y ago
i never use public wifi domestically but i always use it when traveling abroad.
scholia 11y ago
> Wifi is still not a good WAN (municipal) technology. Wasn't WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) designed for city-wide use?

kuschku 11y ago

Many cities have free WiFi in whole downtown areas, on many streets. The use case is by now more than fleshed out. Users connect to it once, and done. It’s cheap, fast, and simple. You don’t have to worry about falling back to roaming when you walk out of the range of the network, as your phone automatically stops downloading that huge file as soon as WiFi stops. But most phones have no way to mark a specific 4G network as "good roaming", cheaper than normal.

Nullabillity 11y ago
> But most phones have no way to mark a specific 4G network as "good roaming", cheaper than normal. Actually, this doesn't quite seem to be the case. When I went to Denmark a couple of months ago my phone didn't consider it roaming, since I have a contract where I have the same prices there and at home.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Yes, so the network is marked as "equal to normal". Like O2 and eplus do. But there’s no way to mark a network as better than normal. For example, if you connect to WiFi, Android will recognize it as a non-mobile network, and start doing updates, etc. If you start listening to a song via Play Music on WiFi, and then go out of range, it will automatically downgrade the quality, or stop playing and ask you if you want to continue. If you are on "NYC 4G", and go back to your own 4G network, there’s no way for Android to stop streaming that FLAC song, because it doesn’t know a way to tell that one 4G network is equivalent to WiFi, but another is not.
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    > For example, if you connect to WiFi, Android will recognize it as a non-mobile network, and start doing updates, etc. If you start listening to a song via Play Music on WiFi, and then go out of range, it will automatically downgrade the quality, or stop playing and ask you if you want to continue. Since the wi-fi radio is different from the cellular data radio in the phone, it's trivial to set different policies depending on which radio the phone is using. The settings to allow differentiation exist because we know implicitly that a wi-fi connection won't be draining your expensive data plan. The phone doesn't actually look at a connection's bandwidth/signal quality/etc to do this.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      Of course. And you can even use the software to tell it that a specific WiFi network is metered. But you can’t tell it that a 4G network is unmetered.

iancarroll 11y ago

How would connecting to it work? Seems like a much larger usability barrier than connecting to WiFi.

nothrabannosir 11y ago

Minor win: it's fantastic for tourists. Roaming kills, and it's great to have access to free wifi (maps, booking sites, e-mail, messaging, whatsapp calls, &c) in a foreign country.

santaclaus 11y ago
Agreed -- Vienna has free wifi (at least in the CBD) and this was awesome when visiting the city.
- kuschku 11y ago
  And on the Donauinsel! Nothing over drinking with friends at 3am on the Donauinsel and enjoying the free WiFi.
- lmcnish14 11y ago
  Same for Wellington's waterfront wifi! It was very helpful for quick Skype calls and looking up information, especially when internet anywhere else in the city was very expensive.
hkmurakami 11y ago
The Free Wifi in the train stations in Japan has saved my butt on many occasions :)
ChatSim 11y ago
If you travel a lot and want to save on roaming costs, try ChatSim! ChatSim is the first sim that lets you exchange unlimited instant messages and emoji, all over the world, using the most popular instant messaging apps, for only 10 euros/year, even without a WiFi connection. ChatSim can connect to the roaming operators, without charging in roaming. You can use: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Telegram, BBM, Line, Kik, Hike, Kakao, and QQi. ChatSim also works with 4G technology. If you want to know more about ChatSim Unlimited, visit our website: http://www.chatsim.com/en http://www.chatsim.com/en
746F7475 11y ago
Major loss when "bad guys" steal all your credentials or is NYC also providing everyone with free VPN?

thescriptkiddie 11y ago

This isn't a substitute for wired municipal internet connections, it's just a sitting-in-starbucks use case that doesn't require you to buy a coffee.

such_a_casual 11y ago

My phone automatically connects to wifi. An amazing use case is the beach. Sitting on the beach, streaming music on my phone via wifi.

ratsimihah 11y ago
Or using the internet

vegardx 11y ago

I don't need to do anything to connect to my providers public networks. The keys are (I'm guessing) just stored in the SIM card and I'm automatically connected when there is WiFi available. LTE being super fast and all, I don't mind not using my data plan and having a low latency, high bandwidth connection without even lifting a finger. You also seem to overestimate how many people can afford a data plan like we (probably) have. Or just young people. Or people who don't use the Internet that often at all. It is probably not ment for the average HN-reader.

russum 11y ago
>>The keys are (I'm guessing) just stored in the SIM card They're not. They keys (and many other things) are stored in "carrier settings" that your provider pushes to your smartphone. In the past we had to set things up like APN & etc manually for the internet to work but not anymore with the settings being pushed automatically (if the provider supports it). On iOS you can view the current version of pushed settings by seeing the Settings > General > About -> Carrier option. "Carrier settings updates are small files that can include updates from Apple and your carrier to carrier-related settings, such as network, calling, cellular data, messaging, personal hotspot, and voicemail settings". [1] [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201270 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201270
- vegardx 11y ago
  Ah, even cooler! What I liked about it was how transparent the whole thing was for me. I didn't have to do anything, it just sort of worked.

jws 11y ago

Not everyone can afford cellular or wired Internet. Municipal wifi raises the floor and keeps the most vulnerable connected.

jessriedel 11y ago
Are you sure there's a significant set of people who have wifi devices but no data service? I am under the impression that the poor buy data-capable phones over laptops. Even if they can't afford data for their phone, the phone can accept free 4G if it were to be offered.
- ksml 11y ago
  I'm only one person, but I (and my family) have computers and smartphones but no data. It saves a whole lot of money to be on a prepaid plan when you have wifi in most places you go.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    Right, but your smart phone is data capable, i.e., can accept a 4G signal. You don't have a dumbphone alongside a computer with wifi. mwsherman's original question was "Why would municipalities offer free wifi rather than free 4G?". jws thought it might be important for folks who didn't have data plans. But my point is that if someone has wifi, they also very likely have a smartphone that's capabale of receiving a 4G signal, even if they cannot afford a data plan from their cell network provider.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      > But my point is that if someone has wifi, they also very likely have a smartphone that's capabale of receiving a 4G signal, even if they cannot afford a data plan from their cell network provider. That's a bit of an assumption. I'd like to see some numbers to support it. I know a bunch of people who have wifi capable devices but not devices capable of 4g. Or they have older smartphones that are not 4g capable.
    - 11y ago

revelation 11y ago

4G/LTE/etc are also impossibly tethered to SIM cards and the greater centralized provider network behind it. If we could just take the MAC layer from 4G/LTE, I'd be with you, but we can't.

sinnet3000 11y ago

The Wi-fi Alliance has created an standard called Hotspot 2.0, which aims to fix "Wifi UX" in these scenarios. From Wikipedia: "The idea is for mobile devices to automatically join a Wi-Fi subscriber service whenever the user enters a Hotspot 2.0 area, in order to provide better bandwidth and services-on-demand to end-users, while also alleviating mobile carrier infrastructure of traffic overheads."

nitrogen 11y ago
How does this standard deal with issues like user privacy, rogue hotspots, etc.?
- gergles 11y ago
  PassPoint uses 802.1x and client certificates/PKI to authenticate. I have the Boingo Wi-Fi service client cert installed on my iPhone and it automatically connects to any -Passpoint network via a WPA2 connection and authenticates with the installed cert. It's really nice for traveling.

lanewinfield 11y ago

It's not just sitting-in: take a stroll around NYC late at night and pass a Starbucks—you'll see many people clinging outside to access their WiFi

ucaetano 11y ago

The issue with LTE is that spectrum is limited. With 30MHz of spectrum, ~2 bps/Hz spectral efficiency and 3 sectors per tower you can provide at most 90Mbps of total downstream capacity per tower. With a density of 10k+ people per km2, a tower serving a one km2 area is easily overloaded. With towers costing hundreds of thousands of USD, things get pretty messy. Wifi doesn't replace LTE, complements it. No doubt that the UX is still crappy, but SIM-based authentication can solve that. Also, unlike LTE, wifi spectrum isn't licensed, anyone can set up a hotspot without paying billions to the government. Sure, we could all solve that by switching the entire world to an unlicensed, pay-as-you-use system, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon. In other words, spectrum is the major constraint in urban areas.

beachstartup 11y ago

i never use public wifi domestically but i always use it when traveling abroad.

scholia 11y ago

> Wifi is still not a good WAN (municipal) technology. Wasn't WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) designed for city-wide use?