[wplug] Wi-Fi Mapping in the Press

[Bill Moran]

"Drew from Zhrodague" <drew at zhrodague.net> wrote:

>     One of the fascinating things about Wi-Fi, is that it can be used for
> last-mile connections -- imagine not having to pay Verizon anything to get
> net piped-in -- and no monthly charges. I am dumbfounded by the continued
> existance of dialup, absolutely stupified!

Have you ever actually done this?

Wifi is horribly unreliable for last-mile connections.  Latency is wildly
variable and unpredictabe, packet loss is high ... it just sucks.  I've
got multiple experiences with this to prove it.

Sure it looks good on paper, and it works OK when it's just your laptop
and the AP is just on the other side of the room.  But when you want to
run a wifi connection over a half mile distance, there are a LOT of
factors that make the reliability of the service unpredictable, and
usually very low.  And even when the service is reliable, performance
usually bites.  Try to run a business with 10+ computers over a wifi
and see how much it sucks.  Hopefully, it will get better with time.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
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