Public(Free) Wi-Fi Speeds?

Just by way of interest, can anyone say what the speeds of "free/public
wireless Internet" are? I am talking about the free citywide Wi-Fi
coming up in cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco or Long Beach. Or are
being talked about, at least.

And, when are we going to have more widely available (for a price) Wireless
Internet - like Verizon and Sprint offers EV-DO - but at higher speeds? I
read somewhere that the successor to EV-DO/EV-DV/3G will be similarly priced
but deliver over 20 times the speed.

SKS

"SKS" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Just by way of interest, can anyone say what the speeds of "free/public
>wireless Internet" are? I am talking about the free citywide Wi-Fi
>coming up in cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco or Long Beach. Or are
>being talked about, at least.

Chuckle. In New Orleans, the new city wide municipal wi-fi system is
running at 512Kbits/sec (thruput) for the duration of the state of
emergency. After that's over, it goes down to 128Kbits/sec as part of
the compromise agreement with the Telcos and ISP's, who correctly
consider free municipal wireless to be a threat to their service
income. I suspect deployments in Philadelphia, SF, etc will follow a
similar pattern. Fast enough to be useful (i.e. 128Kbits/sec), but
not so fast that it competes with wired and wireless (EV-DO) data.

http://news.com.com/New+Orleans+to+o...3-5975845.html

>And, when are we going to have more widely available (for a price) Wireless
>Internet - like Verizon and Sprint offers EV-DO - but at higher speeds?

When hell freezes over and possibly later. EV-DO and HSDPA function
at this time because there's a small number of users. Figure on
600Kbits/sec download and about 150Kbits/sec upload this week. As the
number of users increases, the cellular providers have to add
additional sites, additional frequencies, or throttle bandwidth. I'll
bet on throttle.

>I read somewhere that the successor to EV-DO/EV-DV/3G will be similarly priced
>but deliver over 20 times the speed.

Let me know when you find it. I just love reading science fiction and
press releases. There's LMDS and mobile WMAX that will theoretically
go faster. EV-DO can go faster when they bond more channels. You can
kinda guess what it will cost. At this time, I can get:
14.4Kbits/sec cellular for about $5/month more.
1xRTT at 120Kbits/sec costs about $30/month.
EV-DO at 600Kbit/sec is $60/month.
Wanna extrapolate what 10 mbits/sec will cost from your friendly
smiling cellular provider?

There are also some major technical problems with delivering such
speeds via cellular technology, but I won't go there right now.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

> Let me know when you find it. I just love reading science fiction and
> press releases.

http://www.euronext.com/news/company...895640,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01..._hsdpa_mobile/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/09/o2_3g_hsdpa/

Frank <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>
>> Let me know when you find it. I just love reading science fiction and
>> press releases.
>
>http://www.euronext.com/news/company...895640,00.html
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01..._hsdpa_mobile/
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/09/o2_3g_hsdpa/

Oh that. HSDPA is here now.
http://hsdpa-coverage.com
http://www.umtsworld.com/technology/hsdpa.htm
Cingular is delivering it in the SF Bay area using WCDMA.
500-700Kbits/sec at this time.

Although capeable of much higher speeds, they're "only" delivering
about 500Kbits/sec at this time. That's for good reason as most of
their cell site have only between 1-4 T1 lines per vendor as their
backhaul. It's going to take some major infrastructure upgrades to
make greater than 600Kbits/sec HSDPA work over a wide area. HSDPA can
theoretically go to 10Mbits/sec. (EV-DO can theoretically go to
2.4Mbits/sec and EV-DV to 3.1Mbits/sec). Also, the necessary release
6 handsets (which use MIMO to get the speed to 20Mbits/sec) and cards
are not currently available.

The problem is that the really high speed HSDPA tests all still
testing. There have been no offers of service at above 600Kbit/sec
and no prices set. I don't think they can until they beef up the
backhauls. When they do offer 10 times the speed of EV-DO, methinks
the price will be rather high, or the restrictions rather limiting.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

> The problem is that the really high speed HSDPA tests all still
> testing. There have been no offers of service at above 600Kbit/sec
> and no prices set. I don't think they can until they beef up the
> backhauls. When they do offer 10 times the speed of EV-DO, methinks
> the price will be rather high, or the restrictions rather limiting.
>
There is a lot of testing going on in Europe at the moment and "Manx
Telecom" have rolled out a "Data only" system.

Manx Telecom’s new 3G HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) network
offers speeds of up to 1.2Mbps.

Pronto Connect DATA-ONLY 3G has no connection charge and is offered in
three packages, Connect 10, Connect 100 and Connect 1024.

Connect 10 costs just £9.40 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 10Mb of
data per month with additional data charged at 90p per Mb.

Connect 100 costs £39.95 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 100Mb of data
per month with additional data charged at 60p per Mb.

Connect 1024 costs £88.13 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 1024Mb of
data per month with additional data charged at 60p per Mb.

I think business use only!

By the time O2 roll it out to the rest of the UK,this year, it is hoped
to be a 3.6Mbit service.

MetroFi is currently wireing Sunnyvale, CA for free WiFi access at 1.0mbs.

Chris

"SKS" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:VGazf.24$(E-Mail Removed) t...
> Just by way of interest, can anyone say what the speeds of "free/public
> wireless Internet" are? I am talking about the free citywide Wi-Fi
> coming up in cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco or Long Beach. Or are
> being talked about, at least.
>
> And, when are we going to have more widely available (for a price)
> Wireless
> Internet - like Verizon and Sprint offers EV-DO - but at higher speeds? I
> read somewhere that the successor to EV-DO/EV-DV/3G will be similarly
> priced
> but deliver over 20 times the speed.
>
> SKS
>
>
>
>
>
>

"Chris Werner" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>MetroFi is currently wireing Sunnyvale, CA for free WiFi access at 1.0mbs.
>Chris

1Mbit/sec download max. 256Kbits/sec upload. I have no clue what
users are actually getting.

Free in Sunnyvale. $20/month elsewhere. I think this is their 4th or
perhaps 5th business model. The others were to charge for the service
in various ways. Now, they're following the Google plan of offering
free wireless in trade for shoving advertising in your face. Pay them
$20/month and the ads will go away plus you get a free wireless modem.
http://www.metrofi.com/service.html

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Frank <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>
>> The problem is that the really high speed HSDPA tests all still
>> testing. There have been no offers of service at above 600Kbit/sec
>> and no prices set. I don't think they can until they beef up the
>> backhauls. When they do offer 10 times the speed of EV-DO, methinks
>> the price will be rather high, or the restrictions rather limiting.

>There is a lot of testing going on in Europe at the moment and "Manx
>Telecom" have rolled out a "Data only" system.

The US is years behind Europe and the far East on wireless
connectivity. I can rant on the subject if you want. Also, no
data-only service (except paging) has ever made money.

>Manx Telecom’s new 3G HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) network
>offers speeds of up to 1.2Mbps.
>
>Pronto Connect DATA-ONLY 3G has no connection charge and is offered in
>three packages, Connect 10, Connect 100 and Connect 1024.
>
>Connect 10 costs just £9.40 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 10Mb of
>data per month with additional data charged at 90p per Mb.

Well, at 1.2Mbits/sec the 10MBytes (80Mbits) can max out in 67
seconds. Wonderful. I get to use the service for 1 minute per month
and then pay measured rate by the byteload.

>Connect 100 costs £39.95 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 100Mb of data
>per month with additional data charged at 60p per Mb.
>
>Connect 1024 costs £88.13 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 1024Mb of
>data per month with additional data charged at 60p per Mb.

Better. I get 10.1 hours per month. 1GBP = $1.76. So that's
$50/month (not too horrible) plus $0.34/MByte (ouch!!). My average
use at home is about 100MBytes per day (and I don't do file sharing).
That's $34 per *DAY* (after the first 10 days where I max out my
1024MBytes limit). No thanks. Do you know anyone that can afford
that?

>I think business use only!

I learned a few lessons watching Metricom. Their service was offered
as a business travellers answer to connectivity. There were a few
that used it that way, but the greatest number just plugged the modem
into their desktop and used it as a replacement for a dialup
connection. Speed didn't matter much. It was not monopolizing the
phone line or paying by the minute that was important. I wonder if
Proto Connect allows full time connections.

>By the time O2 roll it out to the rest of the UK,this year, it is hoped
>to be a 3.6Mbit service.

Hmmm... 3 times the speed, 3 times the price?

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Thanks for all the very informative responses! I followed up most of the
links included and discovered a wealth of material out there - though the
devices themselves are not there (as of yet, at least) or in the
planning/testing stages.

The part about the municupalities limiting their speeds to 128 Kbps for free
access was interesting.

Regards all, and thanks again for the info.

SKS
------


"SKS" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:VGazf.24$(E-Mail Removed) t...
> Just by way of interest, can anyone say what the speeds of "free/public
> wireless Internet" are? I am talking about the free citywide Wi-Fi
> coming up in cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco or Long Beach. Or are
> being talked about, at least.
>
> And, when are we going to have more widely available (for a price)
> Wireless
> Internet - like Verizon and Sprint offers EV-DO - but at higher speeds? I
> read somewhere that the successor to EV-DO/EV-DV/3G will be similarly
> priced
> but deliver over 20 times the speed.
>
> SKS
>
>
>
>
>
>

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

> Frank <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>
>>Pronto Connect DATA-ONLY 3G has no connection charge and is offered in
>>three packages, Connect 10, Connect 100 and Connect 1024.
>>
>>Connect 10 costs just £9.40 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 10Mb of
>>data per month with additional data charged at 90p per Mb.
>
> Well, at 1.2Mbits/sec the 10MBytes (80Mbits) can max out in 67
> seconds. Wonderful. I get to use the service for 1 minute per month
> and then pay measured rate by the byteload.
>
>>Connect 100 costs £39.95 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 100Mb of data
>>per month with additional data charged at 60p per Mb.
>>
>>Connect 1024 costs £88.13 per month (inc. VAT) and includes 1024Mb of
>>data per month with additional data charged at 60p per Mb.
>
> Better. I get 10.1 hours per month. 1GBP = $1.76. So that's
> $50/month (not too horrible) plus $0.34/MByte (ouch!!). My average
> use at home is about 100MBytes per day (and I don't do file sharing).
> That's $34 per *DAY* (after the first 10 days where I max out my
> 1024MBytes limit). No thanks. Do you know anyone that can afford
> that?

Yeah, I was looking at Canadian wireless options (not that they're actually
options in my neighborhood) and had the same problem. People complain
about the FAP on my satellite service, which slows downloads after the
first 150MB, but I can at least get over 100MB per day for the same
CDN$90/mo fee. Wireless from the telcos isn't close to competitive on
price.
--
derek