4 ms·

I honestly don't see the 2.4Ghz standards going away any time soon. Sure, 2.4Ghz is hilariously congested, buy as 5Ghz devices are sold, it will be less so and

by mkautzm 13y ago

I honestly don't see the 2.4Ghz standards going away any time soon. Sure, 2.4Ghz is hilariously congested, buy as 5Ghz devices are sold, it will be less so and what I half expect is when people start trying to beam 5Ghz through three office walls (and fail), they'll want to know why and eventually find themselves back on a 2.4Ghz solution, simply because it's not so sensitive to solid objects.

jseliger 13y ago
I honestly don't see the 2.4Ghz standards going away any time soon. I don't either, which is part of the reason I've spent a couple dollars on ethernet cables that connect some of the obvious places. A year ago I wrote this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192451): "Ethernet was developed in the context of the internet with its seven levels of the ISO reference model," he said. "So we had a job to do at level one and two, and we didn't burden Ethernet with all the other stuff that we knew would be above us. We didn't do security, we didn't do encryption, we didn't even do acknowledgements." Very interesting story—I wish it had been more detailed in places, but I love this middle section, about how simplicity sometimes beats complexity. It's also amazing how prevalent Ethernet still is, even when wireless is a competitor. The other day I left this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 on HN, because in some circumstances running a cheap ethernet cable from a router to a desk, couch, or other work station can still be a real win, especially given how inexpensive even very long ethernet cables are from Monoprice.com. They last forever, aren't subject to the level of interference wireless is, and, in many conditions, have faster data transfer speeds. Ethernet is still great.
- jotm 13y ago
  10Gb Ethernet would be fantastic, but the cards are still expensive. Anyway, can't beat 1GbE for low latencies and high speeds, it's still faster than an AC router, unless maybe your computer is right next to it.
- VLM 13y ago
  HN is all about scalability at least WRT software and operations, but at the networking level, its no contest, switch and cables scales about a hundred times better than wireless, although the HN hive mind never understands that. Go ahead, do whatever you want with the laptop on the wireless, the roku won't care because its wired. Buying cables and hooking everything up that you can, is by far the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way to upgrade your wireless experience.
- yaantc 13y ago
  I have to disagree with your comments on Ethernet: - there is security at the Ethernet level with 802.1x. Mostly used in professional settings, to prevent anyone with access to an area to plug into an Ethernet jack and sniff traffic with ARP poisoning or access anything; - the ACK support for WiFi is perfectly fine at L2. The reason Ethernet doesn't do ACK is that the PER is very low so there's really no need for it. The reason why all wireless standards do some form of ACK is that wireless is very lossy and relying on higher layers for retransmission would give poor performance (retransmission at L2 is faster, and transparent to TCP). There's ACK for WiFi but in wireless LAN (e.g.: 4G/LTE) that are also lossy and with a relatively high latency you even have two levels of ACK: at the L1/L2 with HARQ, and at L2 with ARQ. Different contexts, different mechanisms.
pixl97 13y ago
>start trying to beam 5Ghz through three office walls (and fail), they'll want to know why and eventually find themselves back on a 2.4Ghz solution, simply because it's not so sensitive to solid objects. Or they will put a single CAT6 to each room and put a low power 5GHz AP on it. If you are the only person in a few thousand feet 2.4GHz is fine. You cannot expect to have the ability to penetrate walls and have numerous neighbors doing the same.

by mkautzm 13y ago

jseliger 13y ago

I honestly don't see the 2.4Ghz standards going away any time soon. I don't either, which is part of the reason I've spent a couple dollars on ethernet cables that connect some of the obvious places. A year ago I wrote this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192451): "Ethernet was developed in the context of the internet with its seven levels of the ISO reference model," he said. "So we had a job to do at level one and two, and we didn't burden Ethernet with all the other stuff that we knew would be above us. We didn't do security, we didn't do encryption, we didn't even do acknowledgements." Very interesting story—I wish it had been more detailed in places, but I love this middle section, about how simplicity sometimes beats complexity. It's also amazing how prevalent Ethernet still is, even when wireless is a competitor. The other day I left this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 on HN, because in some circumstances running a cheap ethernet cable from a router to a desk, couch, or other work station can still be a real win, especially given how inexpensive even very long ethernet cables are from Monoprice.com. They last forever, aren't subject to the level of interference wireless is, and, in many conditions, have faster data transfer speeds. Ethernet is still great.

jotm 13y ago
10Gb Ethernet would be fantastic, but the cards are still expensive. Anyway, can't beat 1GbE for low latencies and high speeds, it's still faster than an AC router, unless maybe your computer is right next to it.
VLM 13y ago
HN is all about scalability at least WRT software and operations, but at the networking level, its no contest, switch and cables scales about a hundred times better than wireless, although the HN hive mind never understands that. Go ahead, do whatever you want with the laptop on the wireless, the roku won't care because its wired. Buying cables and hooking everything up that you can, is by far the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way to upgrade your wireless experience.
yaantc 13y ago
I have to disagree with your comments on Ethernet: - there is security at the Ethernet level with 802.1x. Mostly used in professional settings, to prevent anyone with access to an area to plug into an Ethernet jack and sniff traffic with ARP poisoning or access anything; - the ACK support for WiFi is perfectly fine at L2. The reason Ethernet doesn't do ACK is that the PER is very low so there's really no need for it. The reason why all wireless standards do some form of ACK is that wireless is very lossy and relying on higher layers for retransmission would give poor performance (retransmission at L2 is faster, and transparent to TCP). There's ACK for WiFi but in wireless LAN (e.g.: 4G/LTE) that are also lossy and with a relatively high latency you even have two levels of ACK: at the L1/L2 with HARQ, and at L2 with ARQ. Different contexts, different mechanisms.

pixl97 13y ago

>start trying to beam 5Ghz through three office walls (and fail), they'll want to know why and eventually find themselves back on a 2.4Ghz solution, simply because it's not so sensitive to solid objects. Or they will put a single CAT6 to each room and put a low power 5GHz AP on it. If you are the only person in a few thousand feet 2.4GHz is fine. You cannot expect to have the ability to penetrate walls and have numerous neighbors doing the same.