wi-fi is not the wireless solution

Tags: Carriers,  Mobile web
August 30, 2007 by Barbara

Have you noticed that using your laptop on public wi-fi is a somewhat less than seamless experience? Certainly, if you are reading this blog, the answer is yes. In our small midwestern city the wi-fi coverage is not consistent, but that's obvious.

For larger cities, I keep hearing phrases like "ubiquitous wi-fi" and of course "municipal wi-fi". But I find that the experience in larger cities is even worse. All of these visible networks may look present, but poor network design, overloaded access points, semi-secure networks, arbitrary passwords, and more get in our way. I've sat in a hotel lobby with 15 access points available (all public), but not a single one useful for actually getting my online data.

My slow but well-engineered 1xRTT or EDGE network is far more reliable. This, of course, is the brilliance behind devices that can use either network. The rule is simple for most users: use the free/fast network if available and reliable; the other network if not. For other users it's also obvious: use the secure network that's faster/cheaper. Too bad more devices don't get this right.

At home I have an excellent connection ... unless somebody is broadcasting locally in the relevant band. Our friends have an excellent connection ... unless the weather is bad. This sort of issue appears to be more and more common.

So it seems that web storage continues to have problems for several types of data. Local storage will never go away.


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