UPC trials Horizon Wi-Free service in Limerick

bealtine

http://www.techcentral.ie/upc-trials-horizon-wi-free-service-in-limerick/


I can only foresee tears in this one...

Fogmatic

I don't understand what this will add.
I'd assumed that most people with home networks already make them available to trusted visitors, e.g. friends & relatives? (And who'll carry the can for other people accessing any "content they really want to see"?)

cgarvey

Pros:
+ I (as a customer) can go to the house of a friend/relative/friend-of-a-friend/etc., and just connect. No need to ask for password, no hunting for the password, no finding the modem to look at the sticker for the default password, etc.

+ If it works (big if), it'll create a huge customer WiFi network. Many houses will leak WiFi, so you don't have to be in someone's house. A step up from parking outside the neighbour's unprotected WiFi, if you like!

Cons:
+ Legal responsibility. If UPC insist on initial device registration / validation and are happy to track/log all those connections, then it could work. If not, then this is doomed.

watty

This is stupid.

What cgarvey says ^^^^^ and other issues too.

Lemo

Anyone know how it works in practice? Presumably it's not just an open wifi so I have to identify myself somehow as a UPC customer either with my upc.ie login or an app on the phone?

Does it really mean that I can then access a wifi hotspot in some stranger's house while sitting on their garden wall? And vice versa for my own hotspot (assuming I don't opt out)?

Would it be WPS?

Tzardine

Why dont they fix the well documented issues with the bloody Horizon box before they do anything else.

The could start with the rubbish UI

Lemo

Ha! I'm still on the old digital box. Not interested in paying them the install fee to "upgrade" to Horizon. Besides, walking across the room to reboot the old box every evening gives me some exercise. Or, more often, encourages me to make more use of my Netflix subscription :-)

bk

Actually this could be a bit of a revolution in the telco market!

Bear with me for a moment.

I believe this is based on the Hotspot 2.0 (Wifi Passpoint) Spec. Basically you most first register your mobile/tablet/laptop in your home BB network. It will then allow you to seamlessly connect to any other UPC wifi point that you happen to come across.

Of course only pre-registered devices will be able to connect and authenticate with a remote Wifi point. So of course there won't be any issues with legal responsibility, UPC will be tracking all of that.

It will also use a totally separate Bandwidth and virtual path from the Horizon box, so the home user should never even notice that it is being used.

What is the benefit of this, well if you ever check wifi in the city center you will often see dozens of UPC wifi networks. You will be able to connect to these automatically when you are out and about (e.g. at a coffee shop) and use your tablet/laptop even if it doesn't have 3G.

They also plan on activating this across the whole of Europe and offering free data roaming. So you will be able to connect to Virgin Media in the UK or in other UPC markets.

It is rumoured that UPC will be launching their own mobile network via a MVNO deal with Three this year. They will be able to offload a massive amount of the data from these mobile devices to their UPC network where available. Thus allowing them to offer cheaper pricing.

Basically UPC will be activating a whole new massive mobile network.

China Mobile has already done this and has managed to offload 75% of the data off their 3G network and onto the wifi/wired network and made big cost savings.

I expect Eircom and Vodafone will do the same with their Hotspots. In time they might all even allow roaming across each others networks, thus creating an almost seamless wifi network (at least in Urban areas) that would allow for very cheap and very fast mobile services.

Personally I actually see this as a very exciting, game changing development.

bealtine

bk wrote: »

Actually this could be a bit of a revolution in the telco market!


It will also use a totally separate Bandwidth and virtual path from the Horizon box, so the home user should never even notice that it is being used.

Interesting when you put it like that...

But I do not want my network visible to the outside world and based on the "security" that UPC have done to date I wouldn't want my router (either DSL or cable) visible at all...
If UPC supply the bandwidth and allow the users to decide to let their router participate then fair enough.

But, based on my interactions with UPC they don't fill me with confidence that they can do this successfully without compromising security which will lead to the tears I mentioned above:)

bk

bealtine wrote: »

If UPC supply the bandwidth and allow the users to decide to let their router participate then fair enough.

They do, you can opt out of it.

But then if you do opt out, you can't make use of the service yourself, which is pretty fair IMO.

UPC are clearly over provisioning the service, they currently sell 200mb/s BB, but their modems are actually capable of 400mb/s and they are currently selling 250mb/s BB to business users.

homer911

What if my SSID is hidden?

What if I am currently using MAC controls?

What if I am using an alternative DNS Server such as OpenDNS with content filtering?

Will we need a new router?

How come UPC have removed the press releases on this topic from their website?

How come there is nothing on the UPC website about this at the moment?

bk

homer911 wrote: »

What if my SSID is hidden?

What if I am currently using MAC controls?

What if I am using an alternative DNS Server such as OpenDNS with content filtering?

Will we need a new router?

How come UPC have removed the press releases on this topic from their website?

How come there is nothing on the UPC website about this at the moment?

When active, it creates a completely separate wifi point, with it's own, unhidden SSID and where your mac controls and different DNS make no difference.

It is a completely separate from your network and settings.

So far I believe this only works on the new Horizon boxes, not on their routers. Don't know if they plan on changing this in future.

I'd guess there is nothing about it on the website because currently it is under trial and not generally released.

bk

This has already been officially launched by UPC Netherlands, you can find lots of info on how it works and is setup here:

http://www.upc.nl/klantenservice/internet/wifi-spots/

Use Google Translate.

It confirms everything I said above. You most first register your mobile devices on your home UPC network, by logging into the My UPC website and from then on it will automatically connect and authenticate with any UPC Wifi Spot you happen to pass.

Using the service is optional and you can opt-out, but then you can't use it either.

It creates a separate wifi network on your router called UPC Wifispots, which is totally separate from your wifi network and settings. You can't see what is on this network and vice versa.

watty

Marketing. It's not really adding very much.

jca

watty wrote: »

Marketing. It's not really adding very much.

It is. It's adding UPC high speed hotspots all over the city. A very clever way of taking the load off mobile networks too.

cgarvey

watty wrote: »

Marketing. It's not really adding very much.

It is, if as reported by BK, IMO. I'll certainly use it. Gone are the days when I go to someone's house, reset their password, and then field support calls for a few weeks "what was that new password, again?".

It won't be a city-wide WiFi network (in that the horizon boxes won't leak outside the house all that much), but it will certainly help with visitors. Or, even, visitors next door!

bk

It will also help greatly if you are in the city center or other high density location.

I look forward to being able to use my tablet and iPad that don't have 3G while in the city center. I also look forward to be able to do data roaming in the UK and across Europe.

BTW looks like it will be rolled out to all UPC routers, not just the Horizon box.

White Heart Loon

Fcuk that, no way I'd want another wireless device hanging off my WiFi, even when I'm not using it. Wireless is limited to the number of consecutive connections, so therefore I'd allow only my own devices. Devices connected will pass traffic some traffic, receive broadcasts and arp, even when they are doing nothing, so just having devices connected doing nothing can affect things. A crazy idea.

watty

jca wrote: »

It is. It's adding UPC high speed hotspots all over the city. A very clever way of taking the load off mobile networks too.

There is EXTREMELY limited WiFi Spectrum. It will reduce WiFi speed (even for people NOT on UPC!) and provide Hotspots for a minority of UPC users only.

On balance there is little benefit. It's to encourage people to join UPC, i.e. Marketing.

The Majority of UPC customers are NOT located where you need an arbitrary hotspot. It's no big deal to permanently add another WiFi definition to your gadget or laptop if visiting a friend or relative regularly that is happy to share and you don't need to be a UPC customer.

Of course if EVERY gadget & Device and WiFi had a short range IR port (or even flashing LED on Access point and simple photo sensor on gadget) for key exchange, then setting up a new Access on your gadget would be trivial.

This is essentially adding an extra Access point to every UPC customer that agrees. There are really only 3 x 2.4GHz channels (54 to 108Mbps) or 1 channel (250Mbps), there are really only 11 approx channels at 11Mbps! Wireless N on 5.8GHz can use up the entire allocation too.

You can't get extra WiFi connections without reducing existing bandwidth.

There are two ways to do it:
1) A really separate WiFi set. No impact if there are local spare channels. Often there isn't. If there is separate Hardware (two WiFi Wireless Sets) and spare spectrum then you see little impact on speed. If there is no empty channels then the speed reduction can be 1/2 to 1/20th
OR
2) A logical Infrastructure Airpoint that shares the same WiFi Hardware and channel, This still uses up bandwidth even when no-one connects as the one WiFi Hardware takes turns to broadcast for Users SSID and the UPC "Public to UPC signed up customers" SSID. A poor signal to the "public" user can slow your existing speed to 1/10th rather than 1/2 if the users are equally using it.

Approach (2) is just firmware and can in theory be done on ANY WiFi point securely. Both approaches the two SSIDs have completely separate settings and can't see each others traffic (unless you know the code). What if someone else also connects to the "public" connection? With suitable tools they can easily sniff content of other "Public" traffic unless UPC is creating a different SSID & logical Airpoint for each "Public" user.

Sniffing the UPC customer's private traffic in theory is harder if the settings are correct.

This is a Marketing concept, not sensible engineering.

bk

watty wrote: »

This is a Marketing concept, not sensible engineering.

Watty, I normally agree with you, but in this case I disagree strongly.

Yes, there is only limited wifi spectrum, but the amount of wifi spectrum is far, far greater then 3G/4G spectrum, so this greatly increases the amount of wireless spectrum available to a user.

I also disagree that it will only have a small coverage. Just do a wifi search on your phone in Dublin City Center and you will find that it is almost fully covered by UPC wifi points. And pretty much the same in any built up urban area.

This will be fantastic for those of us with mobile devices, but without 3G/4G who want to use them while out and about. It will be much easier to find a wifi point now to use.

In time I expect Eircom and Vodafone to do the same and perhaps they will even come up with a roaming agreement between them all. That would create an incredibly dense wireless network, with far more capacity then 3G/4G.

It is basically the first steps of bringing to reality the dream of very dense picocell network.

This launched a few months ago in UPC Netherlands and reading the forums there (with Google translate) so far people seem to be extremely happy with it. Very have noticed any problems and many are finding very high degrees of coverage across their urban locations.

Personally I think it is a very good use of resources. After all, most people very rarely max out the full speed of their 120mb/s UPC connection or even the max speed of their wifi bandwidth. We might download a big file here or there, but most of the time, most people are doing low bandwidth things like surfing, facebook, email, etc. most of the time. Even Netflix and youtube are pretty low bandwidth compared to the bandwidth available with UPC and wifi.

So giving up a little bit of bandwidth and making more intensive use of it, in exchanges for greater mobility and convenience is something I think most people will welcome.

I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree. Either way it is happening.

cgarvey

White Heart Loon wrote: »

Fcuk that, no way I'd want another wireless device hanging off my WiFi, even when I'm not using it. Wireless is limited to the number of consecutive connections, so therefore I'd allow only my own devices. Devices connected will pass traffic some traffic, receive broadcasts and arp, even when they are doing nothing, so just having devices connected doing nothing can affect things. A crazy idea.

You're missing the point, though. It will be a completely separate WiFi network. Nothing to do with your WiFi, your network, your bandwidth, or your usage (other than general WiFi interference mentioned by Watty).

bk wrote: »

BTW looks like it will be rolled out to all UPC routers, not just the Horizon box.

Yeah my previous Cisco router had a UPC network (by default), so the routers/modems have support for separate/dual networks for a while.

Still don't think the limited range will make it a usable urban WiFi network, mind you!

watty wrote: »

There is EXTREMELY limited WiFi Spectrum. It will reduce WiFi speed (even for people NOT on UPC!) and provide Hotspots for a minority of UPC users only.

No different to the default configuration of their routers a few years ago. One WiFi network that you defined (your own SSID / password), and one that they defined. Given the limited (extremely) range of all routers used by UPC, it won't be as big a deal as you might think.

watty wrote: »

i.e. Marketing.

You could extend that argument and say there's no need for UPC to supply WiFi at all. It's "easy" for someone to setup WiFi if they want. It all comes back to marketing!

watty wrote: »

It's no big deal to permanently add another WiFi definition to your gadget or laptop if visiting a friend

It is to most people, I would suggest. However, this is about convenience. It's about ging to that friend's house and just using the WiFi. No need to ask for the password, no need for them to sigh and have to find the password that they're sure they wrote down on that piece of paper beside the phone, but it's gone now, and whoever cleaned that table last must be to blame, etc. Plus if your host is more technical minded (and paranoid) there's no need for them to worry about exposing their network to you.

watty wrote: »

Of course if EVERY gadget & Device and WiFi had a short range IR port

They don't, though. Also, you're assuming a physical presence which might not be the case. If I'm in a coffee shop in Ranelagh, do I use their paid-for WiFi, or do I use that of the next door UPC customer?

watty wrote: »

You can't get extra WiFi connections without reducing existing bandwidth.

Which would be a bigger issue if the UPC routers had any sort of deent range (they don't). In any urban environment, you'll be lucky not to have WiFi clutter now anyway, so you're unlikely to get full channel speeds to yourself (even in 5GHz). UPC might add to it, but the problem already exists. It's not a huge deal, IMO, for many places anyway.

watty wrote: »

This is a Marketing concept, not sensible engineering.

Yes, WiFi is!

oscarBravo

cgarvey wrote: »

You're missing the point, though. It will be a completely separate WiFi network. Nothing to do with your WiFi, your network, your bandwidth, or your usage (other than general WiFi interference mentioned by Watty).

Well, no. Unless the router has two radios in it, it's a virtual AP created by adding a second SSID on the same frequency as your home network.

Very few people understand the implications of allowing a device with a poor signal to connect to a WiFi access point, but it can have a seriously negative effect on other connected devices.

Imagine your laptop is connected to your 11n WiFi router at 130Mbps. That's the air interface rate, which means that it takes around a twentieth of a second for the router to send you a megabyte of data. If there's another device connected at the lowest rate - 1Mbps - it takes eight seconds to send a megabyte to that device. The AP radio will switch between the connected devices many times during that period, but it still needs to stop transmitting to your device, switch to a completely different modulation, transmit a full radio frame at the slowest rate possible, switch back to the higher modulation, transmit a frame quickly to you, switch modulation and send another slow radio frame... and that's with just one slow device connected. The problem gets compounded very, very quickly with multiple devices connected at poor signals.

Then you have the "hidden node" problem. If the client devices can't "hear" each other, one of them thinks it has a clear channel to talk to the AP while another client is transmitting. This creates collisions, which requires the AP to wait until both clients have stopped transmitting - and remember, at least one of them is transmitting slowly - before broadcasting an instruction to all clients to shut up for a random amount of time before retrying their transmissions. The more hidden nodes, the more severe the problem.

All of these are protocol-level problems, completely separate from the interference problem. 2.4GHz spectrum is a scarce resource, despite (or, more likely, because of) the channels being so much wider than GSM channels, and because of the lack of coordination in spectrum reuse. All of the protocol problems I've described above (and several more I haven't) are exacerbated by interference, and radio noise is cumulative.

I'm not saying this won't work to some extent; I'm pointing out that anyone who's expecting it to work as well as a properly-designed mobile network, and believing that it can't possibly have any negative impact on the UPC customers who will be hosting it, doesn't necessarily understand all the engineering issues.

bk

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'm not saying this won't work to some extent; I'm pointing out that anyone who's expecting it to work as well as a properly-designed mobile network, and believing that it can't possibly have any negative impact on the UPC customers who will be hosting it, doesn't necessarily understand all the engineering issues.

Will it have an impact, yes.

Will it have a noticeable impact, well now that is the question.

I think the truth is most people are signing up for 120mb/s BB etc. and are in reality only using a fraction of it.

Personally, I would consider myself a pretty advanced and heavy internet user (300GB per month), I do lots of Netflix, Youtube, etc. and have about 20 internet devices in my house (hell I even have a wifi thermostat and can turn on my heating from Spain!) and yet here I am on a 20mb/s ADSL2+ connection and it all works perfectly fine and fast. Really I don't know why anyone really needs 120mb/s [1]

I would guess that I'm in the top 10% of users, if not the top 5%. I'm sure there is a 1% niche who absolutely max out their connection and wifi copying loads of files around the place all the time, but I don't think that is anywhere like the vast majority of customers.

So I think the majority of customers (myself included [2]) are likely to trade a barely noticable slow down in their wifi the very odd time they transfer a big file, for the convenience to being able to connect to millions of wifi hotspots across Europe with any wifi enabled device.

Yes, it is a trade enough, but I do think it is a sensible and fair trade off for most people. And for that 1% niche users who absolutely need every mb of speed, they can always opt out.

[1] Actually I'll be getting 120mb/s UPC in the next month as UPC are finally coming to my apartment building But it isn't really because I need the increased download speed (it is nice to have, but I don't actually need it), it is more because I need the increase upload speed, that is what will make the difference.

[2] And it is funny I'm saying this as I have a high end 802.11N dual radio router to get maximum performance, but this does seem like a trade off I'm willing to make. In reality if you are copying very large files around all the time, then you should be using gigbait ethernet anyway.

Wifi itself is a compromise, it a compromise of slower speeds (versus ethernet) for the convenience of being able to stroll around the house with your laptop and not have to plug in all the time. Wifi Hotspots just bring this compromise to the next logical step, making it convenient for people to connect their laptop wherever they are.

bealtine

bk wrote: »

Will it have an impact, yes.

Will it have a noticeable impact, well now that is the question.

I think the truth is most people are signing up for 120mb/s BB etc. and are in reality only using a fraction of it.

Very different things, granted 99% of people only use a fraction of their bandwidth but that's not the point:)

We are talking about the OTA interface at your AP and how two devices or AP channels on the same frequency (or even a different frequency) will kill performance for the owner of the AP...so the AP owner must sacrifice their available speed for random passer-by users.

You know already how many people come on moaning about performance on wifi (I only get 20Mb/s on wifi when I have 120Mb/s blah blah) so imagine what will happen if they have to share that 20Mb/s with a passer-by?

Also most UPC wifi routers aren't N yet

bk

bealtine wrote: »

Very different things, granted 99% of people only use a fraction of their bandwidth but that's not the point:)

We are talking about the OTA interface at your AP and how two devices or AP channels on the same frequency (or even a different frequency) will kill performance for the owner of the AP...so the AP owner must sacrifice their available speed for random passer-by users.

Yes, and other times you will be the random user passing by, using someone elses performance.

bealtine wrote: »

You know already how many people come on moaning about performance on wifi (I only get 20Mb/s on wifi when I have 120Mb/s blah blah) so imagine what will happen if they have to share that 20Mb/s with a passer-by?

Yes, people get a new service, they do a speedtest and whine/wonder why they aren't getting the full 120mb/s

That is why we always recommend they plug into ethernet and do the speed test again and also use ethernet if they are copying lots of files.

The question is, once they have done the speedtests, do they regularly ever use the 120mb/s? I think we both know the real answer to that question for most people.

bealtine wrote: »

Also most UPC wifi routers aren't N yet

All UPC DOCSIS 3.0 routers are 802.11N, some just don't have the 5GHz frequency enabled.

Again, wifi is a trade off of convenience over speed. You want top speed, use ethernet (or opt-out of this service). This is a logical step in improving the convenience of wifi.

oscarBravo

bk wrote: »

Will it have an impact, yes.

Will it have a noticeable impact, well now that is the question.

I think the truth is most people are signing up for 120mb/s BB etc. and are in reality only using a fraction of it.

[...]

So I think the majority of customers (myself included [2]) are likely to trade a barely noticable slow down in their wifi the very odd time they transfer a big file, for the convenience to being able to connect to millions of wifi hotspots across Europe with any wifi enabled device.

You're missing my point - bealtine has it right when talking about the air interface. We're not talking about the sort of impact that someone plugging into another ethernet port on your router would have; we're talking about someone hogging your radio bandwidth.

I'll try again to explain. Suppose your router is sending you an amount of data that can fit in five radio frames. You're connected at full speed, so the transmitted frames (ignoring ACKs etc) look something like:

.....

Now suppose the router is sending you the same data, but also sending five frames worth of data at the same time to someone connected with a poor signal to the same radio. Now the transmitted frames look like this:

.-----.-----.-----.-----.-----

Now, imagine there are three poor connections to the radio along with your strong one:

.-----+++++#####.-----+++++#####.-----+++++#####.-----+++++#####.-----+++++#####

I've illustrated this with the radio frames for the poor signals taking five times longer to transmit than the strong signals, but remember we're talking about a 1Mb/s radio frame taking 130 times longer to transmit than one at 130Mb/s. Poor signals don't have a "barely noticeable" impact on WiFi performance; they utterly destroy it.

Again: I'm not saying this is an utterly terrible idea; I'm pointing out that it's all too easy to dismiss the effect it can have on your WiFi performance as negligible when you're not thinking in terms of how the air interface actually works.

watty

^^^^^ What I was trying to say, but the images are better

SpaceTime

This kind of thing is *very* common elsewhere in Europe.

BT do it with FON
Almost all of the French providers do it.

gufnork

I'm with the poster above when they said they need to sort out the issues they currently have with the Horizon box before attempting to push the boundaries even further, and I won't even start with the atrocious customer service and inability to solve any of the problems we had with ours to the point that we had to cancel the service entirely.

/rant

bk

oscarBravo, there is no need to explain, I know exactly what you are talking about.

But the point I'm making is that everything about wifi is a trade off for convenience and I honestly believe that most people will opt for the extra convenience of this service.

If you don't like it you can always opt out.

bealtine

SpaceTime wrote: »

This kind of thing is *very* common elsewhere in Europe.

BT do it with FON
Almost all of the French providers do it.

because someone else does it and it's a terrible idea we must do it too?

Does...not...compute