Dublin to Be Turned Into A Council Backed WiFi Hotspot?

runswithascript

It got a quick mention on yesterday's 6.01 news. Anyone here in the know about this?

Sponge Bob

Yes, IBB bought Dublin and got a sub prime mortgage to pay for it .

watty

yes. free dialup speed by wireless. Be interesting to see how they pay for it. There was a longer article on RTE radio a few months back.

runswithascript

yuck, dialup, say no more.

Akula

Better than nothing and once the infrastructure is there it will presumably get ramped up as bandwidth costs go down.

The implications of this are enormous in terms of providing internet access for the disadvantaged.

runswithascript

Granted. Handy for being out and about in Dublin with a laptop I guess. Just I'd consider not paying €48 p/m for my 3mbps sdsl if they were offering 1mbps.

Random

If they made it all free it'd be pretty nice

runswithascript

Re: infrastructure - we need fiber to the home everywhere like that guy from Street Fighter II.

Fiber Uppercut!

watty

Akula wrote:

Better than nothing and once the infrastructure is there it will presumably get ramped up as bandwidth costs go down.

The implications of this are enormous in terms of providing internet access for the disadvantaged.

Experience in other cities shows that it is the well heeled & Yuppies that benefit the most. People that mostly could otherwise make their own arrangements.

watty

dusf wrote:

Granted. Handy for being out and about in Dublin with a laptop I guess. Just I'd consider not paying €48 p/m for my 3mbps sdsl if they were offering 1mbps.

A Wifi node would just about support 10 people at 1Mbps. If a mesh covered all of Dublin you would need about 4 or 5 nodes per street and more backhaul than all the ISPs use together. It can't realistically hope to even be as good as ripwave.

Even with a 4G system you would need many more bases than I can envisage Dublin corporation paying for.

They would be better focussed use of money and better bandwidth if they subsidized a 3G/HSDPA card or 4G card for anyone with a Medical Card or Unemployed. Then the operators would add bases as more users signed up.

WiFi is very inefficient, scales poorly and needs far too much backhaul connections (not actually huge BW per connection) as the cells are too small even when the density of users doesn't warrent it.

WiFi is for Home / Office/ Cafe / Hotel hotspots. Isolated groups of up to 10 users. While an outdoor Mesh does work, it is like a dog doing Groucho Marx impressions. (Amazing, but not terribly good or usefull).

BendiBus

It would be perfectly adequate for checking email & news headlines on my PDA. So I'm all in favour

bambam

useful for also making phone calls via a hybrid wifi/gsm mobile phone

runswithascript

bambam wrote:

useful for also making phone calls via a hybrid wifi/gsm mobile phone

Yeah I heard you can do that with 3G, your mobile and skype/blueface, if that's what you're suggesting? The phone I have right now is only worth €39 but I'll get one of the second generation (first gen has no 3G) Apple iPhone's when they're released. Will I be able to this with that phone, and also, can you set it up so it automatically connects to any wifi node it can?

CiaranC

watty wrote:

A Wifi node would just about support 10 people at 1Mbps. If a mesh covered all of Dublin you would need about 4 or 5 nodes per street and more backhaul than all the ISPs use together. It can't realistically hope to even be as good as ripwave.

Even with a 4G system you would need many more bases than I can envisage Dublin corporation paying for.

They would be better focussed use of money and better bandwidth if they subsidized a 3G/HSDPA card or 4G card for anyone with a Medical Card or Unemployed. Then the operators would add bases as more users signed up.

WiFi is very inefficient, scales poorly and needs far too much backhaul connections (not actually huge BW per connection) as the cells are too small even when the density of users doesn't warrent it.

WiFi is for Home / Office/ Cafe / Hotel hotspots. Isolated groups of up to 10 users. While an outdoor Mesh does work, it is like a dog doing Groucho Marx impressions. (Amazing, but not terribly good or usefull).

WiMax?

bambam

Nope 3G isn't needed, I'm on about phones which have native support for 802.11 b/g and also GSM. See here: http://news.com.com/Wi-Fi+phones+make+a+splash/2100-7351_3-5296745.html

dusf wrote:

Yeah I heard you can do that with 3G, your mobile and skype/blueface, if that's what you're suggesting? The phone I have right now is only worth €39 but I'll get one of the second generation (first gen has no 3G) Apple iPhone's when they're released. Will I be able to this with that phone, and also, can you set it up so it automatically connects to any wifi node it can?

watty

BendiBus wrote:

It would be perfectly adequate for checking email & news headlines on my PDA. So I'm all in favour

Yes very good for that.

bambam wrote:

useful for also making phone calls via a hybrid wifi/gsm mobile phone

Unlikely to work very often

watty

You don't need Apple's obsolete iPhone. Plenty of last years phones do WiFi & MP3. Don't expect to be able to do VOIP. Most Hotspots in London in a recent survey could not support VOIP.

WiMax would be no use:
1) Mobile version only releases maybe next year
2) 3.5Ghz needs a licence
3) Few people, esp poorer will have it (no-one for Mobile WiMax now)
4) Poorer at penetration and coverage than WiFi as 3.5GHz vs 2.4Ghz

If it happens at all it will be WiFi licence free.