RR WiFi Was: RR dialup

[Charles K. Lee II]

On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 08:34:34PM -0600, Patrick Miller wrote:
> I brought this (RR WiFi) up at Dennys a few weeks ago. The cable company is
> in an ideal situation to offer WiFi. 
> 
> To me they could put WiFi on there cable modems, and allow there customers
> ...

Implementing such a service isn't just a question of technical feasibility,
but also of administrative feasibility.

It would take significant effort to create and support the infrastructure
that you illustrate.  The main problem I see with your proposition is a
question of funding.

In order to implement such a system, a significant investment would be made
in equipment (eventually over 75,000 wifi enabled cable modems would be
needed to replace all the modems in the field).  A lot of money would be
invested in training the staff in the deployment and support of such a
service.  Also, security staff would have to be hired and trained to take
care of theft of service which I'm sure would become much more rampant since
the service would be readily available via airwaves all over the Kansas City
metro area (we all know that wifi isn't known for it's robust security). 

I'm sure there's other points that I haven't mentioned, but the real
question is where would such funding come from?

I don't beleive that there is much demand for such a service, as cool as it
sounds to us geeks.  The only way Time Warner would be able to provide such
a service is by charging the customers who want it an extra fee. 
Unfortunately, only a small fraction of the customer base would jump at such
an offer.  Most customers don't have wireless equipment nor a laptop to use
the wireless equipment with.  Without the demand, there's no way such a
system would be implemented.

> Unlike DSL it won't affect upload
> speeds of the customer (they can even give the household customer priority),
> they can add as many channels as necessary--perhaps one of those many shop
> at home channels. With digital cable services they are also carrying many
> channels in a single channel (Guess 12:1), and they have over 136-158 cable
> channels (more when they go over 1 Ghz in the future--
> http://www.ispworld.com/iwp/ULTRAWIDEBANDWhitepaper.pdf). 1 channel can
> provide about 40 Mbps (not 4Mbps--see note at end below). In those busy
> neighborhoods (i.e.surfers on the plaza) they can have a fiber head-end
> close and carry tons of data. In areas too far from a cable box (i.e. mill
> creek park) they can add a WiFi box on there pole on the block.

(Warning: I'm not a RF technician, so I'm ignorant of the finer (and coarse
:P) details regarding the workings of HFC (hybrid fiber coaxial) cable
networks)

Modems may be able to operate at such speeds in lab conditions, but such
speed wouldn't be reliably attainable out in the field.  Line condition,
interference and other such factors affect the bandwidth performance of the
equipment.  

In addition, upstream capacity is much lower than downstream, since a
smaller block of frequency is delegated for the return signal to the CMTS's. 
That's why the residential internet services are capped at 384 k/s upstream,
while allowing 2000 k/s downstream.

The modems could be configured to allow for greater upstream bandwidth, but
such speeds couldn't be reliably supported, especially in busy areas of the
city.

-- 
chuckx | Charles K. Lee II
chuckx (at) cold-sun . com
http://www.cold-sun.com