C2, WiFi won't crash. It's perfect for its purpose. How far it'll reach will depend on a vast array of variables from town planning to fear of radiation and relative costs of CDMA vs WiFi. But already, it's gaining ground around me.
Tarken [son] bought a WiFi access point a week or so ago and now sits in his shed at Rangataua, online. It's a very modern shed, with a digital TV satellite dish on the outside and modcons on the inside and his mainframe computer in his bedroom in the house and linked via dial up or Telecom's 1xRTT Jetstream to cyberspace. He's there to run his Japanese snowboarders business snowadventures.co.nz
I was just 'chatting' to him on Microsoft Messenger. I'm going to click this into Silicon Investor in a minute, then go and make a nice cup of tea. It'll travel via WiFi to my mainframe LAN department upstairs, then through my new [two days ago] ADSL box to Telecom's fibre system under the ocean and over to you.
On Monday, I took this notebook into our new train station [wife and I went for a trainride to see it and have lunch etc so I played internerd, carrying my computer, to see if I could get WiFi coverage in the station - it's on the edge of the RoamAD test network; I couldn't. But while in Queen's Arcade, I had a comfy seat and raided Silicon Investor via RoamAD's WiFi while wife looked in shops. Then Tarken came on line via Telecom's 1xRTT network while in Otorohanga en route from Rangataua, so we had a 'chat' via Microsoft Messenger.
True, we are registered technofreaks, and our equipment is clunky, gets flat batteries, is temperamental, but it's pretty damn good and when an essential communication is required one day, the costs will become irrelevant.
You can forget about WiFi dying. The only question is how widely the WiFi networks spread. Which will be a function of technology cost and spectrum demand [mostly]. RoamAD's WiFi can beat CDMA by a country mile in downtown environments. And universities and similar crowded places where spectrum capacity is the issue, rather than range.
Sure, out in the sticks, WiFi is useless. In quarter acre residential areas, I doubt it can compete, but maybe it can. It comes into its own where people are packed.
Mqurice
EDIT> Yes, there it is. Now in SI for you to view. Thanks to the amazing magic of WiFi. |
