3 ms·

Wi-Fi Unusability

8 points by wkoszek 11y ago

bluehazed 11y ago
If I don't inherently trust devices on my network, even if I can throttle, block, and do whatever else from my router, why should I let them on it? And why is this a problem that needs to be solved? I can maybe understand the sentiment of wanting to make the best of unused resources, but this thinking is a bit naive and doesn't bother taking into account privacy/security/bandwidth issues, etc.
- wkoszek 11y ago
  I feel like if the Wi-Fis were implemented correctly and instead of silly password/username we'd have 1 identity-certificate to all Wi-Fi networks, we'd all feel better about it. Something like what actually exists: Eduroam network, where students from different universities can use the Internet on different campuses. But it's just not widely spread across the industry.
  - bluehazed 11y ago
    I can see where you're coming from, it's just not really feasible with private networks, due to liability or security issues and plain old NIMBY. So maybe the idea here should be to instead implement some sort of nationalized/globalized public network; however this also has it's own set of issues (public funding being overshadowed by the existing need/demand for private networks, again liability issues (although with an identifying authentication scheme this is less of a problem)).
jdmichal 11y ago
OP wants a mesh network. But Wi-Fi is not a mesh network implementation. Also, Xfinity is a terrible example. As far as I know, the publically-open side is a separate signal with separate bandwidth allocation. It does not use or effect your paid connection at all. Hence why one can set up a wireless router to bridge the the public network into the private one for extra free bandwidth. This also alleviates all of OP's concerns. Bottom line is that people pay for internet access as a resource, and people are generally not in the habit of giving away paid resources for free. The only way this will happen, IMO, is a municipality or otherwise large funded entity taking it on to provide free access to a wide area.

8 points by wkoszek 11y ago

If I don't inherently trust devices on my network, even if I can throttle, block, and do whatever else from my router, why should I let them on it? And why is this a problem that needs to be solved? I can maybe understand the sentiment of wanting to make the best of unused resources, but this thinking is a bit naive and doesn't bother taking into account privacy/security/bandwidth issues, etc.

wkoszek 11y ago
I feel like if the Wi-Fis were implemented correctly and instead of silly password/username we'd have 1 identity-certificate to all Wi-Fi networks, we'd all feel better about it. Something like what actually exists: Eduroam network, where students from different universities can use the Internet on different campuses. But it's just not widely spread across the industry.
- bluehazed 11y ago
  I can see where you're coming from, it's just not really feasible with private networks, due to liability or security issues and plain old NIMBY. So maybe the idea here should be to instead implement some sort of nationalized/globalized public network; however this also has it's own set of issues (public funding being overshadowed by the existing need/demand for private networks, again liability issues (although with an identifying authentication scheme this is less of a problem)).

jdmichal 11y ago

OP wants a mesh network. But Wi-Fi is not a mesh network implementation. Also, Xfinity is a terrible example. As far as I know, the publically-open side is a separate signal with separate bandwidth allocation. It does not use or effect your paid connection at all. Hence why one can set up a wireless router to bridge the the public network into the private one for extra free bandwidth. This also alleviates all of OP's concerns. Bottom line is that people pay for internet access as a resource, and people are generally not in the habit of giving away paid resources for free. The only way this will happen, IMO, is a municipality or otherwise large funded entity taking it on to provide free access to a wide area.