Email Delivery

Receive new posts as email.

Email address

Syndicate this site

RSS | Atom

Contact

About This Site
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Search


November 2010
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30        

Stories by Category

Basics :: Basics
Casting :: Casting Listen In Podcasts Videocasts
Culture :: Culture Hacking
Deals :: Deals
FAQ :: FAQ
Future :: Future
Hardware :: Hardware Adapters Appliances Chips Consumer Electronics Gaming Home Entertainment Music Photography Video Gadgets Mesh Monitoring and Testing PDAs Phones Smartphones
Industry :: Industry Conferences Financial Free Health Legal Research Vendor analysis
International :: International
Media :: Media Locally cached Streaming
Metro-Scale Networks :: Metro-Scale Networks Community Networking Municipal
Network Types :: Network Types Broadband Wireless Cellular 2.5G and 3G 4G Power Line Satellite
News :: News Mainstream Media
Politics :: Politics Regulation Sock Puppets
Schedules :: Schedules
Security :: Security 802.1X
Site Specific :: Site Specific Administrative Detail April Fool's Blogging Book review Cluelessness Guest Commentary History Humor Self-Promotion Unique Wee-Fi Who's Hot Today?
Software :: Software Open Source
Spectrum :: Spectrum 60 GHz
Standards :: Standards 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ad 802.11e 802.11g 802.11n 802.20 Bluetooth MIMO UWB WiGig WiMAX ZigBee
Transportation and Lodging :: Transportation and Lodging Air Travel Aquatic Commuting Hotels Rails
Unclassified :: Unclassified
Vertical Markets :: Vertical Markets Academia Enterprise WLAN Switches Home Hot Spot Aggregators Hot Spot Advertising Road Warrior Roaming Libraries Location Medical Public Safety Residential Rural SOHO Small-Medium Sized Business Universities Utilities wISP
Voice :: Voice

Archives

November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | March 2010 | February 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | June 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 | September 2001 | August 2001 | July 2001 | June 2001 | May 2001 | April 2001 |

Recent Entries

In-Flight Wi-Fi and In-Flight Bombs
Can WPA Protect against Firesheep on Same Network?
Southwest Sets In-Flight Wi-Fi at $5
Eye-Fi Adds a View for Web Access
Firesheep Makes Sidejacking Easy
Wi-Fi Direct Certification Starts
Decaf on the Starbucks Digital Network
Google Did Snag Passwords
WiMax and LTE Not Technically 4G by ITU Standards
AT&T Wi-Fi Connections Keep High Growth with Free Service

Site Philosophy

This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator. Part of the FM Tech advertising network.

Copyright

Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2010 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.

Powered by
Movable Type

« $600 a Week Wi-Fi? | Main | LucidLink Creator Shuts Down »

November 10, 2005

Can Wi-Fi Beat 3G on Terms of Service?

BoingBoing stalwart Xeni Jardin and I have been talking about terms of service for cellular 3G services lately: She's posted some of our exchanges over at the BoingBoing site, notably about Verizon Wireless's incredibly limited permission to use EVDO for Web browsing, email, and intranet applications, and then later, Cingular's very similar language for their UMTS/HSDPA service. I was unable to find the terms of service for Sprint Nextel's EVDO data offering nor T-Mobile's GPRS/EDGE service.

Now, I'm not saying that these 3G terms are wholly unreasonable, just awfully broad--they exclude all host-based services, meaning any application in which a computer has to act as a server, no matter how that figures into a larger function. They also ban VoIP and streaming media as well as sharing among multiple computers. They also have the right (language varies between VZW and Cingular) to cut you off for whatever violation they think you might have caused to happen, including undefined excessive use.

What's so interesting about this isn't, of course, that cell operators have put fine print restrictions on services they advertise as unlimited in big type, and that they have consistently positioned in relation to Wi-Fi. Verizon, particularly, has sounded a long and loud gong about how Wi-Fi only works over a few hundred feet--ignoring enterprise installations like that at EVDO licenser Qualcomm and hotzones and metropolitan deployments--and has all kinds of speed limits on it.

You can't state on the one hand that Wi-Fi is restrictive, non-ubiquitus, and slow while imposing "smart" network penalties on your so-called superior service. 3G is great. I've tested it, I love it, it's an amazingly freeing and fantastic technology. But it's not Wi-Fi, and these kinds of restrictions are more evidence as to the fundamental difference. Wi-Fi is generally run as an Isenbergian stupid network; 3G is smart with all the limitations that imposes. Licensed spectrum is scarce and they have to conserve it; unlicensed spectrum is a commons, and we all tread carefully or lose it together. (In fact, Verizon et al want network neutrality removed so that they can control services on their wired broadband networks, too.)

I'd like to do a taste test and ask readers who subscribe to for-fee hotspots networks or locations that charge fees and have terms of service to send me the applicable paragraphs that refer to what's acceptable for usage. Obviously, tens of thousands of hotspots allied with Boingo Wireless and others think VoIP is fine because they support Skype. And streaming music and video is practically advertised as a reason to use some hotspots. If you work at a hotspot provider, chime in, too. Tell us about how you regulate usage. Post in the comments below or drop me an email.

Let me start with T-Mobile HotSpot. After lengthy looks at several documents, I can't find any list of prohibited activities or services. The most direct statement I can find outside of illegal and unwanted activities (like "no sending unsolicited email") is this: "We may impose credit, usage or Service limits, suspend Service, or block certain kinds of usage in our sole discretion to protect users or our business." It's broad and deep, but sounds like a last resort legal expression instead of a specific policy statement. You can't share a T-Mobile connection or account, either, but that's pretty much the standard line for Internet accounts.

2 Comments

Are you talking about Skype over Wi-Fi as an alternative to cellular?

Or are you lamenting the fact that some 3G operators are prohibiting VoIP on their networks?

The former is a very interesting discussion that the industry should have. How we originate and terminate calls to users roaming from one "stupid network" to another is an important set of issues that has yet to be resolved with commercial services. Between Wi-Fi, mesh, 3G and WiMAX, there are a lot of options. And we can include IMS in the fray.

As for the latter point, I'm willing to bet that there will eventually be VoIP on 3G networks. It might not be Skype, and it will probably cost something, but it'll be there.

[Editor's note: Not lamenting at all, and it's perfectly within the rights of any Internet service provider to define terms. With competition, as there is in the cellular data market, bad terms will lead to customers shifting to better terms, if those terms are important.

Rather, I'm pointing out that folks like George Gilder and Andy Seybold and a host of others want to portray 3G as a Wi-Fi replacement and successor, despite issues with backhaul, cell overuse, and Wi-Fi rapid improvements in speed, range, and interference. They're clearly complementary technologies.

With terms such as the two cell operators I cited, 3G cannot be a replacement for Wi-Fi because it has such limited legitimate allowed uses. Forget whether those uses are enforced or not -- no one wants to sign or accept a contract that states they explicitly cannot use services that they know are key to their purpose in using the service in the first place.--gf]

iBahn has a T&S document, but state nothing about what is allowed or disallowed.

Guest-Tek only has a privacy policy...

The Wayport policy (at http://www.wayport.net/acceptableuse) state things pretty specifically what are accepted uses.

Conversely, I can't find anything specific from Freedomlink, other than a "Does FreedomLink block any specific types of traffic?" question, which is answered "Due to the proliferation of viruses, worms and other malicious activity on the Internet, we block specific ports to increase the security of our network."

Of course, all of this is in lieu of reading a T&S when connecting to their sites... I only have a Wayport McDonald's nearby, and the T&S & AUP is presented before I can click thru to get access.