Chuck Kelly -- WiFi -- WiMax -- HotspotChuck Kelly -- WiFi -- WiMax -- Hotspot25 years ago, IBM PCs, clones, MacIntoshes, etc. were all the
rage. The problem was that everyone was jumping onto the pot and
every program worked with its own set of rules and you sat at home in a
room full of wires. Today that is all legacy. The Internet
is here and telecommunications has gone wireless. Computers,
phones, pocket devices, all talk to each other. Shoot, your
mouse does not even have wires any more.
Where does this leave you? If your computer does not have
built in WiFi, then your can buy a little $30 card. You can
go online to your bank, or find the latest news, or find the
current traffic jams. AOL, Earthlink, and the other dial-up
companies
are now legacy. You do not need them: just plug in the Wi-Fi card
and go online. Well, not quite that easy -- but close.
There are a bunch of people out there who are taking advantage of
what you should but do not know. There are the data pirates, the
virus writers, and the cell phone companies. All of these are a
hazard to your happiness. Read my security section to take care of
your security worries. The cell phone companies are late to the
table and the table so far is almost free. The cell phone
companies hate free so they are trying to pass laws against free
Wi-Fi.
See my Your Help is Needed section.
CNN had a news special the other day telling you that Wi-Fi has
no security and that anyone can invade your computer and see everything
that you do whenever you are connected to a Wi-Fi network. I
listened
carefully and I do not think that they lied -- but they did push
honesty to
the very edge. AND what they said is true of any network -- not
just wireless.
The real problem here is the lack of knowledge of most people have
about
their own computers. Staying off networks is like that little boy
lost in the forest for 4 days and hiding each time a rescuer came
by. Yes, if you never go online and never do email and never copy
any files onto your computer, you will probably never have a
security problem. If you want to live like this, you are better
off discarding your computer and buying a
Gameboy.
Your banking online is safer than walking in and out of the bank as
long as you follow the rules. All your messages are encrypted in
your computer, sent to the other end, and then decrypted.
Similarly, messages to you are encrypted and decrypted in your
computer. Even if there is a predator on your network watching
your messages, the encrypted messages are just gobbledy-gook and
unintelligible. Your predator would need a Cray Super Computer to
decrypt the messages and by then they would be useless. The
encryption key is changed every time you log on to a secure sight.
Given that there really are predators out there, the most unlikely location is within your Wi-Fi network. Such predators have many other ways to monitor Internet messages than sitting 100 yards from you in a coffee shop or book store.
So, do your job and you are secure. Wireless is the fastest
growing form of communication in the history of the world. You
can stay home if you want. Your choice: live free or die.
Again the radicals are at it. A Texan has proposed a law making free hotspots illegal. Why? Because they are unfair to honest (big corporation) competition. This is for real. I read the current proposed law #789 in its entirety. The first two pages bemoan the belabored telecommunications giants and their efforts to provide discounted services for the needy. On page three you get to how they cannot do this if everyone gets wireless service for free. Specifically banned are such free service from public schools and public libraries. I mean who ever heard of "free marketplace" really meaning free? If some big business cannot make a profit from it, then there will be no need for Republicans. If you want to help, talk to the folks at: www.MoveOn.org
I have learned much from setting up my own hot spot. I have learned how to buy equipment, use security facilities, deal with people who want something for nothing, and the logistics of the hardware concepts.
Your installation may need any or all of the above items. When you are finished, you will have a network that you know how to use and manage and will have the knowledge that you are secure from hackers, pirates, and other intruders.
I am on the air with my own hot spot doing business as the El Golfo Wireless Network.
I am using a DirecWay 2-way DSS Dish. If you have been in RV parks, you have seen these. They are substantially larger than a Dish/Direct TV dish. They are up higher as the transmitter is capable of stopping a pacemaker. If it is not higher than head high, the owner is either unaware of FCC regs or just does not care. They are more oblate and the are longer, maybe with a plastic cover on the end.
DirecWay is not nearly as good as advertised but I am online and you can do your online email and browsing. Transmission speed is very slow and uploaded files may be corrupted. They know this and make feeble support attempts of downloading scripts to make sure that you have your Internet Explorer options set to their advantage.
They do the usual data compression that you hear about on the dial-up ISPs like AOL and Earthlink. The problem with data compression is that secure/encrypted sites cannot be compressed and most of my real use is encrypted (bank, credit card, etc.). When you go to these sites you see how really slow DirecWay is.
DirecWay cannot be used with SkyPE or Net2Phone without the other end thinking you are suffering from a stroke. You can hear them just fine. This is because DirecWay favors receive over transmit. I understand why. I just do not like it.
I have noticed that downloading multiple files puts the DirecWay
system into turtle mode for everyone and so I may be required to put
data limits as well as time limits on customers.
My contract with DirecWay limits bandwidth –- I may pay for
additional bandwidth. I pay for the premium service.
If you have Direct TV or Dish Network, you have your TV beamed down from a satellite. You have a round or elliptical antenna aimed at this satellite and a converter box between its cable and your TV. This is sort of like cable with the cable missing. DirecWay adds a transmitter to this system. Instead of talking to your TV, the DirecWay dish looks like a LAN modem to your PC. The DirecWay converter box/modem connects to the satellite through a double cable and connects to your laptop through its LAN plug. The LAN plug looks like a telephone jack only bigger. You could plug a telephone jack into this plug and it will not work. You cannot plug a LAN cable into the telephone jack. They look the same but are different sizes with a different number of wires.
DirecWay has a contract for mobile people with a vendor (MobilSat) that sells its system with an automatic GPS locator. This will cost you about $5,000. Too rich for my blood. I see the simple DirecWay dish mounted on a surveyor's tripod in many places. DirecWay has a policy of not permitting this as they claim that improper setup is destructive to satellites and setup is too difficult for the average bear. This is not true as I have seen it done and it matches the complexity of finding two satellites with the Dish system. The total cost for one of these systems is about $900 and $60 per month for the service. Remember you can cancel the $20/month to AOL. Now you are online all of the time.
Receiving data is better than dial-up but not as good as cable DSL. Data transmission is hit and miss. Set up perfectly, you will find that DirecWay is about the same as dial-up transmission. There is also the satellite latency in turnaround. If you have programs that are timing sensitive (like games) this is not a good solution.
DirecWay has been around for about 5 years and you are beginning to see a lot of these elongated dishes sitting on surveyors tripods around the parks. Nothing lasts that long all by itself in this high-tech marketplace. I am sure there are already alternatives of which I have no knowledge already out there. In any case, there will be good alternatives with higher efficiencies available within the next year or so. Count on it.
In any case, waiting for a new technology is a losing game. There are always new technologies. If you wait, you will have nothing. Just do not beat yourself up when you invest in one technology and another is available a month later. The older technology will not die that rapidly. If this is a problem, stay away from High-Tech altogether.
If you are willing to wait for the local Hot Spot to show up, you have no need for this. If you are where you know there will be no hot spots, this is great. If you want to be your own local Hot Spot, in a remote area, this is what you need.
I have purchased the ControlAP software for security and charging. I lost customers with the hassle of charge coupons that did not work and paid-for logons that kept asking for more money. I need to find an automatic alternative. But after some effort, I now have it working with coupons. I have not got the Paypal link working yet. That will happen.
If you want to go to the hassle of rotating WEP codes, you can save these problems but I want this to be automatic and work without me having to mess with it.
I have a server computer and use a D-Link 802.11g Xtreme wireless
router with a D-Link amplified
antenna. This antenna turns out to be worthless. Well
almost worthless. It
extends the working distance from 50 feet to 100 feet. 200
sometimes. I have been looking and find that a serious amplified
antenna costs about $130. If you are interested, this has a -15
dB power range.
If you are looking for your wireless system to extend more than 50
feet, from the router (transmitter), you must have an extended
antenna. This means that your router antenna must be
detachable. Most inexpensive routers do not have this kind of
antenna.
There are many WiFi vendors. Here are several:
Linksys is the most prevalent. Their blue boxes are
everywhere. They are simple to use but some do not have
replaceable antennas.
I have the most experience here. I would recommend that you
use other equipment. I chose D-Link for its replaceable
antennas. It turns out that they do not talk to their own
repeaters among other problems.
I have nothing nice to say about Trendnet. Their interface
software seems to be Linksys clones. I have one of their
routers. The latest one available when I bought it. It has
the latest available firmware. Under load it just quits and needs
to be power-cycled. Under high heat it irregularly
restarts. I live in the desert, I meet the temperature limits but
just barely. I keep a fan running on my equipment. The
Trendnet always dies where others work. Oh. The Cisco 'N'
router has a similar problem but not as bad.
I have multiple of the USB adapters with the display for finding
hotspots. I have both the 509 and 429 units. These are
absolutely worthless. First off -- sometimes the utility (all
versions) that supports the adapters grays out ALL options.
Following the troubleshooting guide on how to use WIndows Zero
Configuration will work in this case -- it bypasses the Trendnet
utility.
The Trendnet drivers for these devices must have been written from a
developers handbook of the level of the Idiot's Guides. Windows
provides priority levels for applications such that those which are
time dependent on interrupts can service those interrupts
quickly. Trendnet seems to not know about these priorities.
WHenever connected using a Trendnet adapter and your system attempts
other work, your connection drops. As if this were not bad enough, the
adapter then usurps most of your processor time trying to reinstate
itself. If successful, it will drop again for the same
reason. Worse than that, it puts up a little balloon saying it
has reconnected. Unlike most balloons, which disappear after a
few moments, the Trendnet balloons must be removed manually. If
this were a rare and random occurrence, it could be lived with.
But it is a frequent occurrence and a real nuisance.
No email to Trendnet support has ever earned a response. These
people make D-Link look good. In fact after encountering
Trendnet, I have had to increase my opinion of D-Link -- the D-Link
routers work well under high heat conditions.
When I wrote what I considered an upfront and honest appraisal of
the Trendnet equipment that I bought from www.buy.com, they refused to
publish it. They requested the review. There were no curse
words or even poor grammar, but they taught me that the reason all of
their products have lots of stars is that they do not publish critical
reviews.
I know nothing about these vendors routers other than they exist.
If you need to extend your network past one antenna, you need signal
repeaters. Repeaters are a serious addition and headache
and must be added only with alacrity. Examine good antennas
first. If you need a repeater, a good antenna set should also be
used.
The repeater does not have a replaceable antenna. This seems
useless to me.
Their repeaters do not work with other equipment. Other
repeaters do not work with their equipment. Their repeaters
do not work with their own equipment.
Hawking makes repeaters that they claim work with everyone. I
can vouch that they do not work with D-Link.
I know nothing about these vendors repeaters.
There are many antennas for routers. The router comes with
either a single or a double or a triple antenna. The longer, the
better. The multiple antenna routers have a diversity
function. Using a replaceable antenna with a multiple-antenna
router may not have the desired effect.
D-Link makes a nice little antenna with 4db. It is nice, cute,
and works. For $10 more you can get a Hawking 7db antenna.
Hawking makes a wide range of antennas. Take our pick. I
like the 7db antenna for about $40.
There are many other antenna manufacturers. I like the 15db
antenna from Antenna Systems. The 15db antennas are over $100
and have various things to justify their price.
You can make a coffee can antenna for free. Just Google for
wi-fi antennas.
More critical than my server antenna is the user 802.11
adapter card. I have the latest high speed router and will have a
stronger antenna. His built-in receiver or PCM/CIA
(Cardbus) card may be a couple of years old. This means that it
is an A or B
protocol. The latest is G with compression. At least 20
times faster. And faster is
better.
Most laptops today have Wi-Fi built-in. I am not sure I like
this. 802.11N is around the corner and you cannot upgrade a
built-in card. The built-in also is the most location sensitive:
you may have to turn your PC or move it across the room or further to
get a good signal. But then you have the convenience of having
nothing dragging along or plugged in or sticking out the side.
For desktop computers the built-in is a PCI bus car with an antenna
attached. For mobility these are useless since they are located
in the worst possible place to receive a signal: they are located on
the backside of the PC. Wi-Fi signal is stopped by steel.
Your PC case is made of steel.
This is a slot in the side of your laptop (not on a desktop).
The slot usually is wide enough for two cards. All older PCs have
these. Newer Laptop replace these with additional USB 2.0 ports.
The card is usually an inch longer than the slot to provide for the
antenna. Some antennas are very thin. some are almost an
inch thick. I have seen one with a little stick that rotates
up. These are stronger than built-in but not by much. Never
insert or remove a PCM/CIA card when the PC is turned on.
This is the most common as these can be used on desktops and
laptops. Most come with a removable cable so that they can be
plugged directly into the laptop or through the cable. The direct
plug-in is a little more cumbersome than the PCM/CIA card but is nice
for desktops where you want to pick up and run. Attaching the
cable gives you the flexibility to locate the adapter where it can pick
up the best signal. I have seen these mounted on a 12 foot pole
with a plastic cover over the top and bungie cords holding the cord in
place. Since most RV walls are about 12 feet tall, this gets the
adapter higher than the most bothersome obstructions in an RV park.
The really sad thing here is that about half of the users are refusing to pay. Not because of poor service. Not because of high price. Just because they than can pirate the service and I cannot stop them. I can stop them but with all of the hassle my paying customers have gone through with the ControlAP fiasco, I shall implement the rotating WEP numbers in another month.
Since the tourist season is over, the problem is mute. In three more weeks there will be very few customers and I can play all I want. I need a vacation badly.
I have worked day and night and for what? Do I make a profit? No. Do I make friends? No. The knocks at my door at 10:00 at night saying they cannot logon are not worth the trouble if there are hard feelings involved. The number of people who think it is their right to steal my service is frosting my rose-colored glasses.
I mean I have always thought the best of people. I had serious arguments with my freshman literature professor who claimed that “people are basically evil and it shows up in everything that they do”. I have an ex-wife of 20 years who still thinks it fun to push my buttons. I have a daughter whose refusal to repay a substantial loan has ruined my retirement lifestyle.
I live among people who socialize and have fun riding their quads around the beach and desert – and then go back north when the weather turns warm and see the world. Me? I work my tail off during the season running between my RV and the office trying to figure out why my alarms went off. Alarms? I have program (that I wrote) that tells me that the network has died or service is corrupted. As I pass their games, they all say hello.
Buy a quad? With what? It will take all the money I have this month to visit my other daughter (who is an inspiration) and my doctors who insist on seeing me every three months to make sure my diabetes is under control. Good doctors.
I really hate writing technical articles because they become obsolete very rapidly. I keep getting asked -- so here is the skinny.
Wi-Fi permits computers to communicate without wires. Hardware and Software are evolving rapidly to support wireless networking. New laptops come with transmitter/receivers (Transceivers) built-in. If your laptop does not have this, you can buy a credit card sized transceiver for about $35. This card slips into the PCM/CIA slot in the side of the laptop -- or you can buy one for the USB port. Costco and Sam’s Club have these.
You can buy the entire package at Costco or Sam’s Club for about $80. You install the cards in your computers and configure them with matching security information and you are ready to go. Total time: about an hour.
You buy a transceiver (wireless router) for your desktop and use your desktop as a base or server for the entire household. The transceiver has replaced the cables from one computer to another. Local area networking (LAN) is now a household thing and not solely found in corporate headquarters any more.
You plug a PCM/CIA card into your laptop and it accesses your Server anywhere in your house. This is automatic: open the lid and you are online.
The 802.11g protocol speed is designated at 54 MBPS. With data compression, the effective speed is twice this, 108 MBPS. Since dial up is 56 KBS, you can see that this is 1000 times faster. Fat chance. The connection quality will cause speed variations. The letter on your card will limit you (B is 11 MBPS). The transmission speed may be that high but the transmission delays caused by any link in the system will dilute this rapidly:
This covers a lot of it but not all.
The above Server/Client description applies when the high speed internet connection exists in your desktop computer. There are a couple of shortcuts here – and many people use them.
You can connect your High speed Internet connection (DSL modem) directly into your wireless router. This eliminates the server and permits you to have one computer as the client or multiple computers as clients.
Once upon a time, the IEEE 802 LAN protocol was developed. It is a 7-layer thing with TCP/IP the lower two layers, hence its name. But this was a wired thing and corporation spent millions of dollars wiring their buildings with expensive cable so that their workers could communicate with each other on high speed, expensive network computer terminals. This has been true for the last 50 years and is the reason that Cisco is so successful.
Along comes wireless: 802.11. This is a short-range radio transmit/receive protocol that uses TCP/IP. Since it is short range, you do not need an FCC license to use it. Also because it is short range, you have to worry about distance for your clients.
802.11 is going through the alphabet: 802.11A, B, G, etc. We are currently at 802.11G and the latest changes have doubled the 802.11G protocol (by using data compression) to 108 MBPS.
802.11N has been declared and is scheduled for standardization by the end of 2005. It will be available for general usage during 2006. The primary difference is the push by the cell phone people to extend the range to that of cell phones. Within the next couple of years, your laptop will have the same range as your cell phone and have a similar contract with them: open your computer and you're are online anywhere you can make a cell phone call. Yes, you still have to worry about minutes but minute counting is very competitive.
The world moves faster than any one person.
You have a laptop with a transceiver and you find a Hot Spot and open your computer. If the Hot Spot is your personal system, you may be connected immediately. If it is a commercial Hot Spot, you will get a browser page requiring you to logon with your own account ID and password. Most commercial Hot Spots sell connection time by the day or month. $6/day or $20/month is typical.
Windows XP will pop up a window telling you all of the hot spot services are available when you open up the laptop or move it into the range of a new Hot Spot.
A Hot Spot is a physical location where someone has installed a Wi-Fi transceiver server (or hub) that is connected to the Internet (close enough if you are reading this). So when you open your laptop with a T/R, you automatically connect to the Internet through this server/hub.
You can set up your own Wi-Fi system for your own household use. If you do so without adding a logon sequence, anyone in the neighborhood can use your system. People with such computers drive through neighborhoods looking for such unprotected sites. In other words, if you do this for yourself, make sure you add security software.
Within the Wi-Fi server/hub, additional security software must be added to protect one user from another. This software is readily available either built-in (WEP, WPA) or purchased (ControlAP).
WEP is the original security protocol. When you set up your home network, you specify a WEP code and you are secure against passing pirating tourists. The server supports 4 WEP codes so that you can have various levels of security for yourself and friends.
This is the follow on to WEP since the hackers have found cracks in WEP. More and better but you always pay in performance.
Obviously the cell phone companies are investing in Wi-Fi. tMobile has cornered Kinko’s, Borders, and Starbucks. Others have cornered Flying-J and so on.
There are independents in the Hot Spot business. These will not last, as the overhead is too high with the movement of the technology into the mass service market. Boingo (http://www.boingo.com/) is a company with a rapidly growing list of hotels and airports and previous independents.
Don’t ask. Right now they are isolated spots, usually commercial, but they are adding new locations daily. The range of a personal transceiver is 75 meters. This will also change. The merchant can add transceiver repeaters to his hub so that he can cover a large area. Soon it will be like cell coverage: if you cannot connect you are unhappy.
Some cities, like Austin and San Jose, are setting up Hot Spots in their city centers. You can expect to see these in the local McDonald’s or any place where you will be expected to buy more if you sit longer.
Some merchants have free Hot spots to induce customers into the store. I think that there will be much more of this. This is a primary reason for the disappearance of independents.
I have been hearing all sorts of things from people about how they have their own Hot Spots. Here are some descriptions to lay out what is necessary to use Wireless LANs (Wi-Fi).
You need a high-speed connection to the Network. This can be a cable modem, DSL modem, or a satellite modem. The modem connects to your PC through a cable to the LAN plug on your PC. This plug looks like a telephone plug on steroids. In some cases, you may have a USB cable to the high-speed modem but I have not seen this.
One stationary PC with a high-speed Internet connection.
You need the above with two more pieces:
One or more stationary or portable PCs with high-speed Internet connections. Each PC has equal access to the LAN and may access the Internet or other PCs. If the other PCs are your friends there is no danger. This is the simplest form of Wi-Fi and is satisfactory for home use if you have friendly neighbors and no pirates driving your streets looking for free access...
It is possible to have a wireless router dedicated to a printer in which case all LAN users may print on the printer.
You need the Simple High-Speed to One PC and three more parts:
You have a Wi-Fi Hot Spot. Any number of PCs (up to your high speed modem capacity) has limited access to the Internet. The limiting factor is the Control Software. This software controls access to the Internet so that time can be charged and users blocked or restricted.
A location with a wireless LAN.
Enough Said.
A control box capable of connecting multiple clients to the server.
For a wired LAN, this is where all the cables connect.
Wireless Router
One of these exists for a Hot Spot. The primary
Internet connection to the clients is seen from here.
I recommend a wireless router with dual antennas. This
provides for diversity.
A device similar to a router except it has no external connection but instead communicates to another repeater or the LAN router. By definition, communication through a repeater doubles the transmission response time.
This is a radio engineering term whereby two antennas a fixed distance apart are capable of handling mobile, weak, radio signals.
This is a slot in the side of most laptop PCs (usually two slots) capable of holding a specialty card. This card looks like an extended credit card and may have a connector to some device affixed to one end. In the case of Wi-Fi, the end extends from the PC for about and inch and a half with a bulge containing the antenna. There are similar cards for modems, LAN connectors, external disk drives, etc.
A computer whose primary purpose is to contain data for clients and control access to the network.
A computer attached to a network. The attachment may be by wire or wireless (radio) connection.
The OSI 7-layered data protocol for Internet transmission. TCP/IP are the names of the lowest two layers.
Exactly what the name implies. This protocol standard
supersedes
the old 25-pin RS-232 connectors.
The data protocol is standardized as well as the significance of
the data
signals.
The protocol is evolving with the current version 2.0.
The Origin plug is rectangular and flat and under-designed since the
ends for
mating plugs are identical externally and can be damaged if forced
together
inverted. The destination of the original plug (V 1.0) is
six-sided and cannot be
inserted inverted. The V 2.0 plug is much smaller with a
trapezoid shape that also cannot be inverted.
USB is the industry answer to the Apple Firewire which is faster but
the Apple license fees are excessive for
public consumption.
A signal protocol where the signal strength varies according to the content of the data. Human ears are analog. Legacy telephony is analog. Data protocols have superseded analog protocols except for signals intended for human hearing.
With the Internet piped directly into your PC, there is no need for AOL, EarthLink, or any other ISP. I keep AOL only for my daughter now. I have signed up for the free dial-up from Juno so that I am able to get online when I am desperate.
If you have a laptop and are not thinking in terms of instant online anywhere you are a dinosaur.
Type in Wi-Fi to www.google.com and you will be overwhelmed.
Type in “Free Wi-Fi Hot Spots” and you will find multiple sites with lists of free hot spots. The list is growing fast. I won’t try to even start.