4 ms·

Should the U.S. roll out nationwide free Wi-Fi? Depends on which administration you ask.

3 points by technologizer 18y ago

mdasen 18y ago
This is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard. WiFi has a typical range of 32m indoors and 95m outdoors. With a range of 95m, each access point would cover 0.0283385 km^2. The lower 48 states have a land area of 7,663,941.71 km^2. So, we'd need over 270M access points to cover the continental US. But that's an underestimate since you'd have to have a lot of overlap given that if you put two circles next to each other (oo), you would have gaps. So, you'd probably need around a billion. Also, remember that you'd have to run power and data lines to all of them (very expensive) and pay for the power (hey, a billion devices using as little as 10kw per year would cost a ton). It just isn't a feasible project. Heck, to provide indoor coverage you'd need around 10bn. WiFi is barely a decent idea in the densest of cities. Now, if you want to propose that the US use the spectrum freed up by the discontinuation of analog TV in a few months for free nationwide wireless, I'll listen. Those signals can go for a hundred km! That moves it from being a stupid proposal from someone who doesn't understand how radio works to something really workable. Now, because of power limitations in battery operated devices, you'd have to place sites every few miles like cellular operators do, but that's still going to make it a matter of, say, 50-100k sites vs. 10bn. But wait, wouldn't that just make the government another wireless carrier? Pretty much. Maybe the government could do it cheaper, but I'm not so sure I'm into that. I mean, carriers are already competing hard core to get wireless internet to people (all of them are around $60/mo). Would the government be able to roll out an entirely new network just for data cheaper? Would it be more effective? If we've concluded that WiFi is a ridiculous proposition, then people would have to buy equipment to use with this new technology (whether it be WiMAX, EV-DO, HSDPA, HSPA+, or LTE). That's the real appeal of WiFi, the idea that we already have the equipment for it. Anyway, we can already buy that equipment from carriers. Would we get it cheaper from the government? Likewise, we can already get service from carriers. Would the government be able to provision it cheaper? There is the case to be made that wireless is a natural monopoly and so you see efficiencies by having one regulated (or government) operator rather than having competing companies duplicating each others efforts in building a network. However, the government isn't going to compete with them directly. It just won't happen. The companies have invested hundreds of billions in developing networks. So, I think the best we can hope for is that the new white-space created by DTV is allowed for open use (ala Google's push).
devicenull 18y ago
Would you trust this network anyway? I wouldn't. It would (by necessity) be a public network, meaning no encryption, meaning everything you do can be viewed by your neighbors. I imagine it would become a major source of phishing/spam emails, since it's basically impossible to block a semi-skilled user from an open wireless network.

3 points by technologizer 18y ago

This is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard. WiFi has a typical range of 32m indoors and 95m outdoors. With a range of 95m, each access point would cover 0.0283385 km^2. The lower 48 states have a land area of 7,663,941.71 km^2. So, we'd need over 270M access points to cover the continental US. But that's an underestimate since you'd have to have a lot of overlap given that if you put two circles next to each other (oo), you would have gaps. So, you'd probably need around a billion. Also, remember that you'd have to run power and data lines to all of them (very expensive) and pay for the power (hey, a billion devices using as little as 10kw per year would cost a ton). It just isn't a feasible project. Heck, to provide indoor coverage you'd need around 10bn. WiFi is barely a decent idea in the densest of cities. Now, if you want to propose that the US use the spectrum freed up by the discontinuation of analog TV in a few months for free nationwide wireless, I'll listen. Those signals can go for a hundred km! That moves it from being a stupid proposal from someone who doesn't understand how radio works to something really workable. Now, because of power limitations in battery operated devices, you'd have to place sites every few miles like cellular operators do, but that's still going to make it a matter of, say, 50-100k sites vs. 10bn. But wait, wouldn't that just make the government another wireless carrier? Pretty much. Maybe the government could do it cheaper, but I'm not so sure I'm into that. I mean, carriers are already competing hard core to get wireless internet to people (all of them are around $60/mo). Would the government be able to roll out an entirely new network just for data cheaper? Would it be more effective? If we've concluded that WiFi is a ridiculous proposition, then people would have to buy equipment to use with this new technology (whether it be WiMAX, EV-DO, HSDPA, HSPA+, or LTE). That's the real appeal of WiFi, the idea that we already have the equipment for it. Anyway, we can already buy that equipment from carriers. Would we get it cheaper from the government? Likewise, we can already get service from carriers. Would the government be able to provision it cheaper? There is the case to be made that wireless is a natural monopoly and so you see efficiencies by having one regulated (or government) operator rather than having competing companies duplicating each others efforts in building a network. However, the government isn't going to compete with them directly. It just won't happen. The companies have invested hundreds of billions in developing networks. So, I think the best we can hope for is that the new white-space created by DTV is allowed for open use (ala Google's push).

devicenull 18y ago

Would you trust this network anyway? I wouldn't. It would (by necessity) be a public network, meaning no encryption, meaning everything you do can be viewed by your neighbors. I imagine it would become a major source of phishing/spam emails, since it's basically impossible to block a semi-skilled user from an open wireless network.