4 ms·

There is a technical basis for concern, although ultimately the problem is of the hotel's own making. You simply cannot have 500 mifi-type devices transmitting

by skuhn 12y ago

There is a technical basis for concern, although ultimately the problem is of the hotel's own making. You simply cannot have 500 mifi-type devices transmitting data (along with the hotel's actual WAPs) in the same room without major problems. There are only three non-overlapping channels for 2.4Ghz 802.11b/g/n, and mifi devices that I'm familiar with pick a "good" channel on startup -- they don't limit themselves just to the three non-overlapping ones. 5GHz is better, and the decreased ability to pass through walls is likely desirable here. However, your mifi is still broadcasting in 2.4GHz, and wifi clients will fall back to that if they don't like the quality of the 5GHz signal. OS X, for instance, is very finicky about using 5GHz on an SSID that broadcasts for both 2.4/5. Right now I'm approximately 6 feet away from my AP, and my laptop has switched to 2.4GHz. Ultimately though, this whole mess is the fault of the hotel's poor implementation. If their wifi was free or low cost, and worked well, then why wouldn't everyone use it? That people are using their mifi devices says they are being ill served by the existing solution, not that they were just dying to pay AT&T more money and carry around yet another black plastic brick. By providing crappy service, these hotels have created the problem they're complaining about. Either don't do it at all (and save money / hassle to boot), or do it right.

calgoo 12y ago
I would just push for the FCC to release more bandwidth then, so there is no overlapping. Lobby for that instead of making a loophole that will be abused in every possible way.
- skuhn 12y ago
  Agreed, but I don't know if anything can really be done for 2.4GHz at this point.
  - jrockway 12y ago
    Wifi's modulation schemes aren't the best for the real-world 2.4GHz spectrum. They work really well in the lab, and mildly well in the real world. Getting rid of Wifi and replacing it with something else could make unlicensed wireless networking more reliable. LTE-U seems like the way forward here, though it seems there are some industry barriers in the way. (If you make LTE chips and sell them all to cell phone carriers, and they tell you they don't like LTE-U, you probably won't be in a hurry to start selling LTE-U chipsets. Pure speculation.) That said, 5GHz Wifi does pretty well. There is a misconception that 5GHz doesn't go through walls, but that really has no scientific basis (2.4GHz and 5GHz radio signals are pretty much the same; 60GHz doesn't go through walls, but that's an order of magnitude higher frequency). The problem with 5GHz Wifi is that only some channels allow 2.4GHz-equivalent power levels, and access points are really dumb about auto-selecting them. So if you think 5GHz doesn't go through walls, try changing to a high-power channel. 149 is a good one to try, as it's high-power and has adjacent channels to steal for 80MHz 802.11ac. (The low channels are about 20x less powerful than the high channels. That's why people think 5GHz doesn't go through walls. Those low channels don't.)
    - seanp2k2 12y ago
      Excellent tip re: power levels. FWIW though, if I'm reading this right, you can have high EIRP on most channels >= 52 : http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/channels/lwapp/reference/guide/lw_chp2/1140_chp.html http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/c... Little tidbits of knowledge like this are a big part of why I love HN. Now to go disable B/G on my home wifi and change the channel while wishing that home wifi routers shipped with low power-levels selected by default vs. the current situation of ISP-provided and out-of-the-box gear blasting out max power in every single apartment in my neighborhood, causing AirPlay to be unreliable across the living room.
    - skuhn 12y ago
      That's interesting about the power levels per-channel. In my case, I actually WANT the not-going-through-walls experience. In an apartment (or hotel room), the goal is just to get as much coverage as you need, not to blanket three floors down. Smarter power level selection on APs (specifically consumer grade) would be nice. If all of your clients have acceptable signal strength, ratchet down, otherwise try ratching up, etc. If nothing else, it would be nice if manual control was possible (e.g. Apple removed transmit power selector from AirPort Utility). There's also the problem I mentioned with OS X (and possibly other clients) being biased towards 2.4GHz. I have to create separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5 GHz at home, and some devices live on one and some on the other. Otherwise, I'll see occasional periods of really terrible performance with 2.4GHz, presumably because of interference (I can see 20+ SSIDs from my living room).
      - jrockway 12y ago
        Yes, clients are very bad about choosing the best connection for themselves. Access points can work around this by delaying probe responses on 2.4GHz relative to 5GHz, or by doing full-on band-steering (though it has to know that the target device is 5GHz-capable, which is hard). Really, WiFi is a mess, and it's up to the access point to restore sanity if possible. You're sort of doing that by hiding 2.4GHz under another SSID. (I do the same thing at home. I have a couple of devices that are 2.4GHz only. I can't wait until I can finally turn that off.)
  - spyder 12y ago
    pCell (if it really works): http://www.cnet.com/news/is-pcell-the-holy-grail-of-wireless-networking/ http://www.cnet.com/news/is-pcell-the-holy-grail-of-wireless...
kak9 12y ago
Think this is pretty absurd move by the hotels as well. fwiw though, I believe a bunch of the higher end hotels can't implement free wifi, because they set up Wifi a while back and got locked in to contracts with the companies that set it up for them--which haven't expired yet.
- memracom 12y ago
  There is a solution to this problem. It's called bankruptcy after which someone buys the hotels assets without the debts and other obligations. The new owner can then set up a sensible free WiFi service ( and charge that old WiFi company a reasonable fee so they can some in and remove their old and highly valuable infrastructure).
- skuhn 12y ago
  I don't have any knowledge of contracts that hotels might have for wifi, but it strikes me as strange that this is the way the hotels are going about dealing with that situation. Hotels first started deploying wifi in what, 2002-4? How long were these contracts exactly? If they contracted with a firm to provide bed linens, and haven't seen the performance of these linens in service, would they sign 20 year iron-clad deals? If their customers complain that the per-night cost of the linens are equal to buying them, or hate them to the point of bringing their own sheets, would they still stick to their guns? Would they appeal to the Federal Sheet Commission for help blocking third party sheets? Or would they say "this isn't worth it"? They're in the business of accommodating guests, not antagonizing them. So then find a way out of this contract or just eat the termination fee. After all, if the deals are so bad, the minimum + a reasonable modern deal may break even or come out ahead. Every contract has a way out, particularly when performance goals are not met, and I'm just skeptical that an entire industry of multi-billion dollar companies got so thoroughly taken for a ride by upstart wifi installers in 2003.
  - Klinky 12y ago
    The hotel industry is pretty fragmented. Most hotel chains are franchises run mainly by independent franchisees. The quality of hotels varies wildly depending on location, even within the same brand/chain. There isn't as much oversight or centralized management as one might think. The hotel industry is also big on low wages, high employee turnover and pushing people in and out of the door as quickly as possible. Proper implementation of wifi is an afterthought. The experience is usually better in 4-star or higher hotels, but those come at a premium.

by skuhn 12y ago

calgoo 12y ago

I would just push for the FCC to release more bandwidth then, so there is no overlapping. Lobby for that instead of making a loophole that will be abused in every possible way.

skuhn 12y ago
Agreed, but I don't know if anything can really be done for 2.4GHz at this point.
- jrockway 12y ago
  Wifi's modulation schemes aren't the best for the real-world 2.4GHz spectrum. They work really well in the lab, and mildly well in the real world. Getting rid of Wifi and replacing it with something else could make unlicensed wireless networking more reliable. LTE-U seems like the way forward here, though it seems there are some industry barriers in the way. (If you make LTE chips and sell them all to cell phone carriers, and they tell you they don't like LTE-U, you probably won't be in a hurry to start selling LTE-U chipsets. Pure speculation.) That said, 5GHz Wifi does pretty well. There is a misconception that 5GHz doesn't go through walls, but that really has no scientific basis (2.4GHz and 5GHz radio signals are pretty much the same; 60GHz doesn't go through walls, but that's an order of magnitude higher frequency). The problem with 5GHz Wifi is that only some channels allow 2.4GHz-equivalent power levels, and access points are really dumb about auto-selecting them. So if you think 5GHz doesn't go through walls, try changing to a high-power channel. 149 is a good one to try, as it's high-power and has adjacent channels to steal for 80MHz 802.11ac. (The low channels are about 20x less powerful than the high channels. That's why people think 5GHz doesn't go through walls. Those low channels don't.)
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    Excellent tip re: power levels. FWIW though, if I'm reading this right, you can have high EIRP on most channels >= 52 : http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/channels/lwapp/reference/guide/lw_chp2/1140_chp.html http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/c... Little tidbits of knowledge like this are a big part of why I love HN. Now to go disable B/G on my home wifi and change the channel while wishing that home wifi routers shipped with low power-levels selected by default vs. the current situation of ISP-provided and out-of-the-box gear blasting out max power in every single apartment in my neighborhood, causing AirPlay to be unreliable across the living room.
  - skuhn 12y ago
    That's interesting about the power levels per-channel. In my case, I actually WANT the not-going-through-walls experience. In an apartment (or hotel room), the goal is just to get as much coverage as you need, not to blanket three floors down. Smarter power level selection on APs (specifically consumer grade) would be nice. If all of your clients have acceptable signal strength, ratchet down, otherwise try ratching up, etc. If nothing else, it would be nice if manual control was possible (e.g. Apple removed transmit power selector from AirPort Utility). There's also the problem I mentioned with OS X (and possibly other clients) being biased towards 2.4GHz. I have to create separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5 GHz at home, and some devices live on one and some on the other. Otherwise, I'll see occasional periods of really terrible performance with 2.4GHz, presumably because of interference (I can see 20+ SSIDs from my living room).
    - jrockway 12y ago
      Yes, clients are very bad about choosing the best connection for themselves. Access points can work around this by delaying probe responses on 2.4GHz relative to 5GHz, or by doing full-on band-steering (though it has to know that the target device is 5GHz-capable, which is hard). Really, WiFi is a mess, and it's up to the access point to restore sanity if possible. You're sort of doing that by hiding 2.4GHz under another SSID. (I do the same thing at home. I have a couple of devices that are 2.4GHz only. I can't wait until I can finally turn that off.)
- spyder 12y ago
  pCell (if it really works): http://www.cnet.com/news/is-pcell-the-holy-grail-of-wireless-networking/ http://www.cnet.com/news/is-pcell-the-holy-grail-of-wireless...

kak9 12y ago

Think this is pretty absurd move by the hotels as well. fwiw though, I believe a bunch of the higher end hotels can't implement free wifi, because they set up Wifi a while back and got locked in to contracts with the companies that set it up for them--which haven't expired yet.

memracom 12y ago
There is a solution to this problem. It's called bankruptcy after which someone buys the hotels assets without the debts and other obligations. The new owner can then set up a sensible free WiFi service ( and charge that old WiFi company a reasonable fee so they can some in and remove their old and highly valuable infrastructure).
skuhn 12y ago
I don't have any knowledge of contracts that hotels might have for wifi, but it strikes me as strange that this is the way the hotels are going about dealing with that situation. Hotels first started deploying wifi in what, 2002-4? How long were these contracts exactly? If they contracted with a firm to provide bed linens, and haven't seen the performance of these linens in service, would they sign 20 year iron-clad deals? If their customers complain that the per-night cost of the linens are equal to buying them, or hate them to the point of bringing their own sheets, would they still stick to their guns? Would they appeal to the Federal Sheet Commission for help blocking third party sheets? Or would they say "this isn't worth it"? They're in the business of accommodating guests, not antagonizing them. So then find a way out of this contract or just eat the termination fee. After all, if the deals are so bad, the minimum + a reasonable modern deal may break even or come out ahead. Every contract has a way out, particularly when performance goals are not met, and I'm just skeptical that an entire industry of multi-billion dollar companies got so thoroughly taken for a ride by upstart wifi installers in 2003.
- Klinky 12y ago
  The hotel industry is pretty fragmented. Most hotel chains are franchises run mainly by independent franchisees. The quality of hotels varies wildly depending on location, even within the same brand/chain. There isn't as much oversight or centralized management as one might think. The hotel industry is also big on low wages, high employee turnover and pushing people in and out of the door as quickly as possible. Proper implementation of wifi is an afterthought. The experience is usually better in 4-star or higher hotels, but those come at a premium.