On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 6:46 AM, Fred Goldstein <fgoldst...@ionary.com> wrote:
> At 4/2/2012 09:22 AM, Jeromie Reeves wrote:
>>Right. This is the next part of the puzzle. John Scrivner wrong to the
>>list a email titled [WISPA] Future of Wifi Offloading WAS: Ericsson is
>>buying BelAir, betting on Wi-Fi.
>>
>>This auction sums up my post in that thread. The cellco's are getting
>>smarter about what the users want and about how to
>>deliver it to them. Look at the partnerships that cellco's are making
>>with cable co's. The cable companies already have large
>>high speed footprints. Its trivial to throw a cable modem with a AP in
>>it onto a pole. Suddenly you have a very large roamable
>>footprint, if only that wifi chipset had a little more cellular sauce
>>in it.
>
> Just to clarify, "AP" generally means WiFi. Most smartphones already
> have WiFi, so it's just a matter of getting them to use it. But the
> cellcos could also choose to adopt picocells or DAS, where they mount
> a cell on every block or so, possibly hanging from the cable. That
> latter case uses the cellco's licensed frequencies. It puts more
> pressure on their spectrum, but lets them bill for the usage.
Right I should say PicoCell instead of AP. It really does not put more pressure
on the spectrum as it will be gps synced. Smaller, tighter cells
releases pressure
from the RF by offloading.
>
> Since Americans prefer flat-rate plans, the cellcos seem to be moving
> away from charging by the bit and more towards monthly plans. This
> changes their incentive from wanting more bits to wanting
> fewer. Think about how the LD business moved away from advertising
> usage ("the next best thing to being there") to discouraging usage
> (railing against "access stimulation"). So it looks like they'd
> really rather your smartphone move to WiFi when home and not tie up
> their network.
Right but this is where I think the cellco's got smart. They know that
is not going to fly
for long or very well. Also bits is not the main issue. RF congestion
is and this kind
of picocell setup would solve a lot of that. The main reason people do
not use their
wifi is the convenience of not having to switch radios. A cellco
powered wifi would go
a long way to making people happy in that regard. Also, look at all
the special use they
can bill for.
>
>>Atheros chips very well could do it with some good
>>firmware, look at Ubnt. They are pretty close with their GPS, for a
>>small in house project. Look at what Ubnt did with just a
>>highly experienced RF team? AirFiber. Now do the same with more money
>>and in a cellular project aimed at very small and
>>very fast cells. Sky is not falling, yet.
>
> Atheros is now part of Qualcomm, which of course makes cell phone
> chipsets too. There are already cheap femtocells (home-based) that
> do the RF side of the cellular system (NodeB) while parasitically
> feeding the customer's Internet connection, giving the cellco, in
> effect, free backhaul. (Why should Vonage have all the fun?) An
> outdoor picocell is a bit more complex but practical in an
> aerial-wire area. Of course it doesn't do much good in an
> underground-wire area. Femtocells haven't caught on that much here
> because WiFi is picking up the load. They are mostly useful when you
> are just out of range of a base station and need to use the cellphone
> at home; WiFi offload doesn't work for receiving phone calls.
Right. And they do work in a underground wire area. They just need to run
wire up a pole some place. Even in 100% underground areas there are light
poles and I have seen wifi on them, cellco's can do it too.
>
> But going back to the original thread, there's some irony here in how
> the cellcos almost screwed themselves when trying to screw us. They
> had inserted wording into a budget bill that would have banned the
> FCC from providing any more unlicensed spectrum. Their minions on
> the Hill thought that they wanted it. But while the lobbyists were
> pushing that message, the folks on the ground were trying to move
> traffic to WiFi, and thus their own cost-saving plans would have been
> hurt. They got word back to the Hill on time and thus concurred with
> WISPA and almost everyone else that banning unlicensed would be a bad move.
Gotta love politics.
>
> --
> Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com
> ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/
> +1 617 795 2701
>
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