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Oh man, Mountain View. I remember how the quality was already a joke in 2011. The network's completely gone today. In fact, I think XKCD's "Wifi vs. Cellular"
by AceJohnny2 9y ago
Oh man, Mountain View. I remember how the quality was already a joke in 2011. The network's completely gone today.
In fact, I think XKCD's "Wifi vs. Cellular" [1] strip summarizes the situation perfectly. Nowadays I frequently disable wifi on my phone in problematic areas of my house or work, because LTE works better. Makes me wish for a femtocell...
[1] https://xkcd.com/1865/ https://xkcd.com/1865/
That said, I assume Google is bringing lessons learned with their Access infrastructure work along with WiFi optimization as showcased in their Home hub, and things will work better this time around.
- nkristoffersen 9y agoI'm annoyed Chrome closed the alt-text before I finished reading it.
- shagie 9y agoTry the mobile version (alternative way for alt text reading): https://m.xkcd.com/1865/ https://m.xkcd.com/1865/
- ajdlinux 9y agoAnyone here who understands Wifi + mobile networks better than I do able to ELI5 why 3/4G is more reliable than 802.11 in so many situations?
- rayiner 9y agoProbably lot's of different reasons. WiFi networks have to share unlicensed bands with other WiFi networks and hundreds of other things. Cellular networks have dedicated spectrum. LTE also uses a more integrated and centralized set of protocols for connection setup ("attach") and traffic management. See: https://hpbn.co/mobile-networks https://hpbn.co/mobile-networks (scroll down to "radio resource control"). For example, getting an IP address is part of the attach procedure. (I feel like DHCP is responsible for 99% of flaky WiFi). Also, the RRC controls each cellular radio to a much greater extent than the 802.11 base station controls each 802.11 device.
- ajdlinux 9y agoAll good points. Also as someone who's a software engineer working in the firmware space, I suspect LTE base stations are just plain more reliable than home WiFi routers...