Hotspot 2.0 Wifi - A mobile revolution from UPC and Eircom/Meteor

bk

A new standard called Hotspot 2.0 is emerging that could revolutionise the mobile market.

The idea behind HotSpot 2.0 is for mobile devices to automatically join a Wi-Fi subscriber service whenever the user enters a Hotspot 2.0 area. The intention is to provide better bandwidth and services-on-demand to end-users, whilst also alleviating mobile carrier infrastructure of traffic overheads.

If you have ever looked at wifi in a city, you will normally see dozens of UPC/Eircom/Vodafone wifi points.

The idea would be if these companies enabled Hotspot 2.0 on all of their customers routers, then when you used a mobile device that supports Hotspot 2.0 (e.g. all iPhones and iPads running iOS7), that your mobile device would automatically connect to the hotspot on the router and use the required connection of the UPC/Eircom service rather then 3G/4G wireless.

For example if you were a Meteor customer, as you walk around the city, your iPhone would automatically connect to various Eircom customers VDSL2 routers and use their bandwidth rather then 3G/4G.

This could revolutionise mobile data as it would probably mean unlimited mobile data when connected to one of these Hotspots, rather then crappy 1/5GB caps we currently get.

You can also offload calls and texts to this hotspot while in range, reducing costs even further.

China Mobile has already deployed the technology and they were able to offload 75% of the data used from 3G to wifi, leading to massive savings.

A few companies would benefit from this here:

- Eircom/Meteor/eMobile would obviously benefit from this big time if it was enabled on all Eircom routers.

- UPC seem to be planning to enter the mobile market next year as a MVNO on Three's network. It would obviously benefit them greatly to enable Hotspot 2.0 on their routers and offload as much traffic as possible unto their cable network.

- Vodafone could also offload a lot of their traffic by enabling it on their VDSL2 routers.

That just leaves the merged Three/o2 out in the cold. If Three are clever, they would come to an agreement with UPC to use their Hotspots, in exchange for cheaper MVNO access for UPC.

This is a very exciting technology IMO. A very interesting article about it here:

http://technologyinnovator.com/index.php?articleID=46774&sectionID=52

ED E

You're a wealth of info today(and always) bk.

If a deal like this were to go through would that lock subscribers down to ISP CPE as they'd need to maintain the "public" access point?

bk

ED E wrote: »

If a deal like this were to go through would that lock subscribers down to ISP CPE as they'd need to maintain the "public" access point?

Well that is already the case for UPC and Vodafone/Eircom seem to be going that way with the VDSL2 modems *

* I've not heard of anyone not using the supplied modem on VDSL2 yet, have you?

I don't think it would be a big deal anyway, even if customer supplied CPE's were allowed and didn't work with Hotspot 2.0, the reality is more then 95% of people just use the ISP supplied CPE.

ED E

bk wrote: »

Well that is already the case for UPC and Vodafone/Eircom seem to be going that way with the VDSL2 modems *

* I've not heard of anyone not using the supplied modem on VDSL2 yet, have you?

I don't think it would be a big deal anyway, even if customer supplied CPE's were allowed and didn't work with Hotspot 2.0, the reality is more then 95% of people just use the ISP supplied CPE.

Currently the 3925 from UPC is bridgeable. Though theyve been moving away from supporting bridging so wouldnt be surprising.

A small minority of VDSL users are using Drayteks. They're pretty much the only ones making something to replace(and support vectoring) the stock Zyxels right now. Its expensive so its mainly businesses employing it AFAIK.

kaizersoze

Presumably customers could 'opt out'?
Not sure if I'd be too keen on strangers connecting to my wifi ad nauseum.

How would they be restricted from accessing data on my network?

Or should I be wearing my tinfoil hat....:pac:

ED E

kaizersoze wrote: »

Presumably customers could 'opt out'?
Not sure if I'd be too keen on strangers connecting to my wifi ad nauseum.

How would they be restricted from accessing data on my network?

Or should I be wearing my tinfoil hat....:pac:

Itd have to be a separate PPPoE connection, or at least a hard VPN. It'd probably mean 2 IP's per subscriber which would be expensive. Well, the VPN could skip that if it went back to a pool like 3G connections do(I think).

bk

kaizersoze wrote: »

Presumably customers could 'opt out'?
Not sure if I'd be too keen on strangers connecting to my wifi ad nauseum.

Yes, you could opt out, at least that is the case with the first deployment of this in the Netherlands. But then I presume, you couldn't use it on your phone.

kaizersoze wrote: »

How would they be restricted from accessing data on my network?

Or should I be wearing my tinfoil hat....:pac:

Of course, I assume this would act like how guest wifi does and that it would have no access to your network.

I also presume that it would have no impact on your bandwidth and cap (if any).

I'd have no issue with this on UPC, with them having potential for 400mb/s, if they even reserved 50mb/s for this, I wouldn't mind and would happily trade that for access from my mobile devices while on the move.

It mightn't work as well on VDSL2 due to the more limited bandwidth.

Gandhi

My ISP (in the US) does something like this. I use my own cable modem and wifi router so I could not participate even if I wanted to.

You CAN opt out if you want, and it IS a separate connection from your home wifi network.

The one issue with this is that a lot of cafes / restaurants have switched to using this instead of fully open wifi, and you have to log in with your ISP's username and password to use it. If you don't have a home ISP, or one that does not participate, then you are now locked out of formerly open wifi services. The cafe ones do support multiple ISPs, not just the local one. The splash screen on your browser allows you to select your own ISP and then takes you to a login screen. Your login info gets saved, so you are automatically logged in to any participating hotspot afterwards.

FAQ on the service is linked below.

http://www.comcast.com/wifi/neighborhood/faqs.htm?SCRedirect=true

Calibos

When people have such dreadful wireless connections within their own homes through internal stud walls, how could this be a usable service when the crappy signal has to make it through the exterior brick/block walls?

wheresmybeaver

You'd end up having tweens sitting in your driveway picking up your WiFi. No thanks! Might work better in cafes and other commercial places, but i don't see it being workable with irelands low density residential population.

bk

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

You'd end up having tweens sitting in your driveway picking up your WiFi. No thanks! Might work better in cafes and other commercial places, but i don't see it being workable with irelands low density residential population.

In the Netherlands they are estimating that there will be 44000 wifi connections per square km!

Irish urban and semi-urban areas would actually have similar coverage, Dublin has a higher population density then Amsterdam.

Just try it for yourself, walk around Dublin or even your own neighbourhood and see all the UPC and Eircom wifi points it picks up, usually at least a dozen in most places I've tried.

GarIT

I'd be really worried about this as I can access my WiFi in a friends house nearby so there's probably 100 houses in range of my WiFi and if they would kill my bandwidth. 3G is fast enough and 4G is amazingly fast this wouldn't be worthwhile at all for me.

bk

GarIT wrote: »

I'd be really worried about this as I can access my WiFi in a friends house nearby so there's probably 100 houses in range of my WiFi and if they would kill my bandwidth. 3G is fast enough and 4G is amazingly fast this wouldn't be worthwhile at all for me.

I wouldn't worry about it, of course it would be managed in such a way that it would have little or no impact on your own connection.

Remember, only people who are already customer of the sake ISP as you can use your router. There is no reason for your neighbour to use your connection as it will default to using their own.

It is only the odd time when you are travelling that you would be using other peoples connection.

I would in particular have no worries about this on UPC, let's say you are on a UPC 120mb/s connection, UPC could easily provision a separate 80mb/s dedicated to other users and which would have zero impact on you own 120mb/s service. Really these is almost a completely good thing, on UPC at least.

Basically it means free wifi throughout Dublin for UPC customers.

bk

And it seems that UPC is already starting to roll this out in Ireland on Horizon boxes:

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/post/87734634

GarIT

Even if it takes a Mb or 2 its really too much, I need all I can get, everyone else can use 3G. I've the fastest broadband my line can handle and im using it all for myself, and it will stay that way even when my line gets faster.

Jambo

BT in the UK already do something similar, according to them their customers have access to 5m wifi hotspots.

ED E

GarIT wrote: »

Even if it takes a Mb or 2 its really too much, I need all I can get, everyone else can use 3G. I've the fastest broadband my line can handle and im using it all for myself, and it will stay that way even when my line gets faster.

Then you're not the kind of person its aimed at. Simple.

GarIT

I can see this being totally abused. A relitave has UPC broadband, I could drop my own Vodafone sub and use one of my several neighbours UPC connections using the relatives login.

ED E

GarIT wrote: »

I can see this being totally abused. A relitave has UPC broadband, I could drop my own Vodafone sub and use one of my several neighbours UPC connections using the relatives login.

With a hard limit. You arent on their lan, and itd be done with hard QOS. And Wifi limitations would limit you to 10Mb or less in a lot of cases.

Also what does it matter if the customer themselves has no need for the extra bit of bandwidth.

drunkmonkey

This may be technically possible but there's way too many what if's to make it workable in an uncontrolled environment.
If they did roll it out you'd still need the mobile network available everywhere for redundancy and as most mobile networks already have different spectrums and network partnerships in place adding another layer of capacity seems unnecessary and as the nodes will be in consumers house it makes it uncontrollable.
The freeing up of 3G spectrum and the roll out of 3G plus and 4G will achieve the same outcome if not better.

bk

GarIT wrote: »

Even if it takes a Mb or 2 its really too much, I need all I can get, everyone else can use 3G. I've the fastest broadband my line can handle and im using it all for myself, and it will stay that way even when my line gets faster.

Really, you need every mb of a UPC 200mb/s connection!!

Please tell me, what the hell for?

UPCs speeds are so ridiculously fast that in reality, you would rarely get this speed as you are being throttled by the servers you are downloading from on the internet.

A UPC 200mb/s connection is equivalent to 20 HD video streams or 10 ultra hd streams, so what exactly do you need all that bandwidth for?

When you go over 100mb/s you are way beyond what most people need, in fact most people are limited at speeds beyond this by their wifi connection. So I think this is a very good and reasonable use of all that extra bandwidth.

And again, I'll repeat it is likely that UPC are over provisioning to make this happen. For instance, if you are signed up to 200mb/s, they are probably giving you something like 220mb/s, with the extra 20mb/s going to other users, while you continue to get the full 200mb/s

In the end you can always opt out if you don't like it.

Btw no, 3G/4G aren't good enough, there is a reason why most providers have 1 to 5GB data caps on their mobile services, because there simply isn't enough radio frequency to deliver large amounts of bandwidth over mobile. This hotspot tech solves that issue and should allow for unlimited data caps when using these hotspots.

From a network engineering perspective, this is a very elegant solution.

GarIT

bk wrote: »

Really, you need every mb of a UPC 200mb/s connection!!

Please tell me, what the hell for?

UPCs speeds are so ridiculously fast that in reality, you would rarely get this speed as you are being throttled by the servers you are downloading from on the internet.

A UPC 200mb/s connection is equivalent to 20 HD video streams or 10 ultra hd streams, so what exactly do you need all that bandwidth for?

When you go over 100mb/s you are way beyond what most people need, in fact most people are limited at speeds beyond this by their wifi connection. So I think this is a very good and reasonable use of all that extra bandwidth.

And again, I'll repeat it is likely that UPC are over provisioning to make this happen. For instance, if you are signed up to 200mb/s, they are probably giving you something like 220mb/s, with the extra 20mb/s going to other users, while you continue to get the full 200mb/s

In the end you can always opt out if you don't like it.

Btw no, 3G/4G aren't good enough, there is a reason why most providers have 1 to 5GB data caps on their mobile services, because there simply isn't enough radio frequency to deliver large amounts of bandwidth over mobile. This hotspot tech solves that issue and should allow for unlimited data caps when using these hotspots.

From a network engineering perspective, this is a very elegant solution.

Torrenting and gaming often going on at the same time and sometimes streaming too. I'm only on Voda at 24mb hopefully soon it will be 70mb, not a chance of getting UPC for a long time. It's a bit annoying that your line might be able to handle more than you are getting but they wont sell it to you. Say if it was limited to 20mb, then thats only half of the 3G speeds people are getting in my area, I can't see the appeal for halfing your speeds, especially when you have an unlimited data allowence.

The other two things I'd worry about are security. It would need to be extremely good and I definately wouldnt want it if it was using the same channel as my own wifi and causing intererance as it seems to be for some people.

I know I can opt out, I'm just saying why I think this is a bad idea.

bk

If you are only on 24mb/s than of course I can understand your concern, it should never be run on such a slow service.

But on a UPC 400mb/s service, come on you have to admit, no one is going to come even close to that, specially as most wifi tops out at 100mb/s, so using some of the bandwidth for this seems very appropriate. It is a really good use of bandwidth that would otherwise go unused.

And the point of this that you seem to be missing is that you will also benefit from it. Do you have a wifi only tablet or laptop? Now when you walk around most cities, you will be able to use them like you would at home. UPC even plan on enabling this across Europe. So if you are travelling in the UK or Amsterdam you will be able to use their wifi too

IMO it is more then a fair trade off to give up a few megs of a 400mb/s connection, in order to be able use wifi for free almost anywhere in Europe!

roast

Bump!

Got a letter from UPC a few days ago regarding this, will post the exact details later. It's an interesting concept, I'm just a little curious on how it'll be deployed. For apartment blocks and the like, I don't see the point of enabling each modem in each apartment for this service.