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This one caught my eye:

http://wifinetnews.com/archives/2010/07/att_expands_hotzone_test_to_charlotte_nc.html

If properly engineered, this could prove a rather nice way to help offload some of the data requirements from the cellular networks.

It's funny how the whole "Metro Wi-Fi" thing has gone up and down. Initially, (pre economy problems) many cities around the world offered "free Wi-Fi" in city centers, parks etc. That died down quite a bit when the economic downturn hit. Now we have a "resurgence" of sorts ( albeit for paying customers).

Dave

This sounds like a great idea.... right up until the point at which it comes through the windows and floods my network. I would like to see more on it from AT&T and see how it is they plan on containing this.

Maybe contain is the wrong word. Wrangle maybe? I know. I know, "that's why you do a site survey." Honestly though I could see this causing some problems. I know my iPhone doesn't run on 5GHz, so if they are planning in essense to provide a widespread 2.4GHz network, I am concerned.

Yes, that's why I said "properly engineered". Unfortunately, the whole concept of "license free operation" has it's pros and cons.

If they have any sense, they'll set up pilot projects first on a small scale. Even though they have no "obligation" to coordinate with existing users of other Wi-Fi systems, I'm sure some sort of horse trading will be done will be made if major problems occur re "interference levels".

I'd imagine that most of these zones will be set up in "downtown" areas first.

Dave

Dave,
I wasn't targeting your comments at all with my post and I hope it didn't come across that way. I have a hard time with anyone saying they are going to limit their wireless to a specific footprint when that footprint is as large as a metropolitan area.

I just don't see it being feasible for AT&T to work with every business in this circle of operation to ensure they don't step on any toes. And even if they have a decent plan for narrow coverage down a street or something, you're going to have lobes that extend into the buildings down the street. Even if you allow 8-12db loss through a metal and concrete wall, the chance that Joe CEO can't have a conference in his board room on the street side of his building seems to be enough to at the very least cause some hair loss amongst the IT guys in the area.

No problem. Spillover is always a concern. Unfortunately, that's part and parcel of the whole licence free business. The system will be supporting both voice and data apps, so it will be interesting to see how they are going to engineer this. Hopefully ATT will play nice when such situations occur and at least try to come to a compromise.

People will "suck up" as much bandwidth as they can. I cannot foresee any time in the future when people say "I now have enough bandwidth"....."Let me leave that movie running in the background while I open up my e-mail....let me watch that nice HD type news broacast at the same time as I go back and forth with my buddy playing "Doom"...etc etc". Loads of stuff running in the background.

The whole 3G/4G congestion thing should not have caught any of the wireless carriers by surprise. If you say to people "Buy from XYZ and you can have a zillion bit/s of bandwidth", they will try to do that and more. The whole backhaul network has become congested as well, leading to the current situation where they have to try to offload onto Wi-Fi.

Makes you think:

Did they have the sense to run pilot trials with 3G/4G etc with loads of people and say to them "Go hog wild, download what you want, open up as many apps etc as you would like"and then see the effect on the network ?

Or

Did they get so greedy to get money coming in that they just went ahead and built the networks anyway..."Oh it'll sort itself out when we get the customers coming in" ?

I spent years "fixing" poorly designed networks of all sorts. Frame Relay networks were the classic.....oversubscription ?.....a salesman's dream.

Sadly, there probably will be many cases of "inteference", but the public's thirst for all this new bandwidth on cellular will probably take precedence.

Dave