The end of the Wireless dream?

[Christopher]

Many Vision of the future (most importantly Shadowrun 2070 setting) asumed we would be using Wirless data or even energy transfer a lot in the future. And for thier time it seemed like that would be the case. But now reality sets in and we have to realise: A wire will always be superior to a Wireless connection. It is impossible for a Wireless connection to even get close to a wire, much less surpass it in Bandwidth.

 

As is so often the case, wireless greatest strenght is also it's greatest weakness: It uses one, omnipresent medium (space).

Everyone and thier microwaves are "polluting" the airwaves. And that is before you even consider actuall intentional broadcasting (Television, W-LAN, Mobile Internet). We are running out of useable Spectrum in the air. Extra Credit explains it quite well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuqmKg6QQTw

 

 

Here is how wires are superior (and always will be):
Interference:
Wires can be very easily protected from noise. Indeed most often a "better" cable is simply one with extra insulation against magnetic interference, We still need the chipset/hardware advancements to actually pull this off. But upgrading the cable is straigtforward and low cost.

A Antenna can not be shielded from noise without negating half it's use.

 

Reliability:

Once you set up and plugged in a cable, you have consistent internet/network traffic. Short of someone actually unplugging the cable or doing percussive maintenance on the router, nothing can realy disrupt it.

Wireless technologies can be stopped by some walls and a closed metal door.

We propably all have seen somebody stuck with a Wireless mouse that suddenly failed due to empty batteries.

We all heard stories of one Receiver being set up to receive multiple mices inputs, and one mouse being received by multiple receivers.

 

Range:

This is perhaps the most counterintuitive part on the list. Our data may travel across half the globe using a wire.

With wireless stuff we see a clear trend towards either limiting the range or the bandwith drastically. W-LAN and Bluetooth have drastically shorter ranges and coverage then any mobile phone.

Mobile phones have drastically lower bandwith then any W-Lan.

You can't really use any form of Wireless technology to talk from one end of a skyscraper to the other. Even just using your mobile phone out of a Subway station or a car needs a dedicated (cable based) relay.

 

Security:
In order to intercept a wireless communication you really only need to be in range to hear both sides sending. Because that is highly insecure we always have to waste extra Bandwidth and CPU time on encryption. Bluetooth is often turned off by default and will never accept a connection unless the user gave explicit consent.
Any measure we take to make Wireless stuff less insecure are measures that also negate the advantage the idea had to begin with.

In turn intercepting messages on a copper wire or even fibre optic cable is near impossible. You have to do a man in the middle attack.

 

Take 2 or 100:

Perhaps the biggest advantage is that you can just add mediums to a cable. The normal LAN cable is already 2 media - one for each direction. A piece of Fibre-Optic cable can include up to 100 seperate fibers - each a seperate medium.

And it does not end there. You can easily put a half dozen Network cards into one Tower.

 

 

What I think the future brings:

Wireless technology might be related more and more to fringe uses.

It will propably hold it's place for Mobile Communication and W-Lan. Bluetooth is already limited past easy useability. Turning off W-LAN because more and more a "must do" rather then "can do".

While we will retain mobile internet, I doubt it can keep pace with the increasingly more complex (and bigger) applications we are going to roll out. Patches will propably have to be downloaded via a W-Lan link, rather then proper mobile internet. We might even have to dig out some of those old tricks we used to squeeze extra bandwith out of Modems, like transmitting the data compressed.

 

Side effects if Wireless starts to decline:

It will certainly have a effect on mobile device development, as they are intimately tied to mobile internet and W-LAN. None of the devices has any room for a LAN connector, so W-Lan is the space saving alternative to get at least decent speeds.

This could go into two ways: Tablets and Smartphones just kind of fading away slowly. Or them getting even more powerfull because a thick client would have much less need for data traffic. Anything with a high data volume will propably have to be done via a W-LAN.

[ghost-angel]

A few points;

 

I agree that backbones will always be hardline. It's hard to be the sheer bandwidth of fiberoptic.

 

But individual devices, that's another matter, especially as thin clients are actually back on the rise again.

 

The thing about hardline over wireless is infrastructure. To add nodes to a hardline you need to either run more cable, or add in even more switches (which makes it harder, though not impossible, to control VLANs on a LAN or CAN. But the more connections you add, the more managed switches you end up needing, or people share a link. not always what you want).

 

Adding wireless connections just means adding a new node, assuming you've reached maximum capacity on the current nodes. They don't interfere with each other, for the same reason 1,000 computers don't cross data on a hardline connection. With wireless, too, you can always add media (not entirely sure what this actually references, unless you mean more concurrent connections across the same line). We use a very small range of frequencies as dedicated by the FCC in the US for wireless communication, a society fully geared towards it will probably use a lot more, roaming, frequencies, to find the best fit in a given environment.

 

Portability - wireless means you can go anywhere. And if that wireless uses the Cellular Network (versus the dedicated WiFi frequencies) it roams as you go, not needing to reinitialize a connection every 500 feet.

 

And the other thing about wireless, if the airwaves get full, add more frequencies, some frequencies go further than others too...

 

As for talking across sky scrapers, well, there's always a central hub linking back up to the backbone, the way out of the LAN/CAN to the WAN, that links everything on a given network, a wireless tablet can talk to another wireless tablet a quarter mile away, but yes it does it with the help of a hardline via the access points back to the central router.

 

As always, the answer is never "One or the Other" - it's a combination of the two. Wireless offers a level of portability and mobility that hardline cannot offer. Even standard ethernet degrades at 100 meters. So end clients will likely be wireless, infrastructure will be a combination of hardline trunks, wired access points, and possibly the occasional dedicated wireless frequency.

 

I think the future is going to be an underlying fiberoptic structure connecting a large number of wireless nodes.

[Nolgroth]

Hey, as long as there are enhanced cybernetic implants, smartguns and street shamans, I'm up for either.

 

Just don't suggest my cyberarm can be hacked wirelessly. 

[ghost-angel]

Just don't suggest my cyberarm can be hacked wirelessly. 

 

Only if it has a wireless network card...

[Tasha]

Hey, as long as there are enhanced cybernetic implants, smartguns and street shamans, I'm up for either.

 

Just don't suggest my cyberarm can be hacked wirelessly. 

 

Actually that's a real life issue. Current pacemakers (and Automobiles) use bluetooth for updates and reprograming. Hackers have figured out how to hack into those devices to cause mayhem.

[Tasha]

I think that Wireless is here to stay. Lots of bandwith opened up when TV broadcasters gave up their original VHF bandwith after they switched over to High Def. That same spectrum is actually really good at penetrating walls and has great distance abilities. On top of that new discoveries with antennas, and other things will allow that spectrum to be sliced very small. As for network speeds over wireless, there are faster and faster ways to send stuff over wireless all of the time. Yes, cables (copper and Fiber) are inherently more secure, but are themselves still physically hackable. They also have problems of physical wear and tear. No technology is perfect. It is way too soon to be predicting the end of any way of sending data.

[ghost-angel]

It's things like that that cause me to twitch whenever I see something like a networked refrigerator ... why does your fridge need to be online? I mean, other than allowing someone to turn it into a SPAM server or node for a DDOS Attack...

 

The temperature of your 8 day old leftovers is not imperative.

[ghost-angel]

I think that Wireless is here to stay. Lots of bandwith opened up when TV broadcasters gave up their original VHF bandwith after they switched over to High Def. That same spectrum is actually really good at penetrating walls and has great distance abilities. On top of that new discoveries with antennas, and other things will allow that spectrum to be sliced very small. As for network speeds over wireless, there are faster and faster ways to send stuff over wireless all of the time. Yes, cables (copper and Fiber) are inherently more secure, but are themselves still physically hackable. They also have problems of physical wear and tear. No technology is perfect. It is way too soon to be predicting the end of any way of sending data.

 

As someone who used to hack phone trunks... wired =/= secure.

 

The only secure computer has all it's networking capability removed, is powered down, placed in a fire safe, in a concrete cube 200 meters thick, lined with lead, and buried 1000 meters underground.

 

Everything else can be breached.

[Cancer]

* Cancer considers the data on his 16-year-old Exabyte tapes and wonders if those can be breached *

[Zeropoint]

My Shadowrun Missions character keeps the wireless on one of her guns turned off at all times, just in case.

[Cancer]

I think that Wireless is here to stay. Lots of bandwith opened up when TV broadcasters gave up their original VHF bandwith after they switched over to High Def. That same spectrum is actually really good at penetrating walls and has great distance abilities.

Certainly true. Roughly 1-2 GHz is the minimum noise/minimum interference window for interstellar signals, which is why so much SETI work has been done in that general bandpass.

[Tasha]

It's things like that that cause me to twitch whenever I see something like a networked refrigerator ... why does your fridge need to be online? I mean, other than allowing someone to turn it into a SPAM server or node for a DDOS Attack...

 

The temperature of your 8 day old leftovers is not imperative.

 

The vision is for refrigerators that can reorder food as you use it. Perhaps also using it to look up recipies on the internet etc.

[Christopher]

Actually that's a real life issue. Current pacemakers (and Automobiles) use bluetooth for updates and reprograming. Hackers have figured out how to hack into those devices to cause mayhem.

Heard/read about that one too. And I asked myself who would be so mind-boggling stupid?

Wireless I can understand. If you are reasonably certain you did everything to secure it for the danger it poses.

 

But something as insecure as Bluetooth? For something as dangerous as a pacemaker?

The Evil Overlord list has this little thing on it: "One of my chief advisors will be an average, every-day eight-year-old child.  Any flaws in my Master Plan that he is able to spot will be corrected long before I put that plan into action."

 

On top of that new discoveries with antennas, and other things will allow that spectrum to be sliced very small. As for network speeds over wireless, there are faster and faster ways to send stuff over wireless all of the time.

The thing is:

Every trick we develop to make Wireless faster, we can apply (or already do apply) for Wired connections. For much lower cost and much more gain.

Every frequency we might use in the Air we can use a bajillion times easier in a copper wire. Each (twisted) Pair of copperwires has all the frequency we have in the air for itself. That is what I meant with "each cable is a seperate medium".

 

Everyone using the one Wireless Medium we got, has to share it with everyone else using the one wireless medium we got.

With wired stuff you got your own, seperated medium for yourself. With each and every cable.

 

As someone who used to hack phone trunks... wired =/= secure.

 

The only secure computer has all it's networking capability removed, is powered down, placed in a fire safe, in a concrete cube 200 meters thick, lined with lead, and buried 1000 meters underground.

 

Everything else can be breached.

Certainly.

But we can at least make it harder for an attacker then "being in the general vicinity of the target or it's access point".

 

Last I heard laws still consider hacking into a Wireless network less of a crime then breaking into the room and hooking up a CAT cable.

With wireless it can even become your fault for having a Wireless network that can be (easily) hacked to begin with. No or only WPA encryption is considered negligent on your end.

 

With wired connections we only consider encryption (at all) with security relevant stuff.

With wireless we consider a minimum amount of encryption as "just about as save as non-encrypted wired networks".

[Tasha]

No WPA is still generally secure. It's folk who secure their wireless routers with the older WEP that are totally fooling themselves. Though we are now on WPA2.

There are just things that wireless is always going to do better than wired connections. Wire may always be faster, but there's lots of cases when wireless is way more handy. There are lots of houses where running a bunch of network cables is impractical. So WiFi comes to the rescue. 

 

ie I could hook up external speakers with a wire, but it's really handy to turn on the speakers and then just have them handshake with my phone that is sitting in my purse. Without hooking up wires. Same with the wireless headphones. I love the handsfree bluetooth that came with the car it's very handy to use. WiFi is great for my tablet and phone (and cellular is a nice fall back).

 

This is like a discussion where people talk about what is the best desktop OS. It comes down to what you are doing and what meets your needs. There will always be a need/use for wireless networks. For most people that kind of networking is good enough security and good enough speed to meet their needs. Also not having to fiddle with yet another cable is a huge thing for them.

[ghost-angel]

Heard/read about that one too. And I asked myself who would be so mind-boggling stupid?

Wireless I can understand. If you are reasonably certain you did everything to secure it for the danger it poses.

 

But something as insecure as Bluetooth? For something as dangerous as a pacemaker?

The Evil Overlord list has this little thing on it: "One of my chief advisors will be an average, every-day eight-year-old child.  Any flaws in my Master Plan that he is able to spot will be corrected long before I put that plan into action."

 

The thing is:

Every trick we develop to make Wireless faster, we can apply (or already do apply) for Wired connections. For much lower cost and much more gain.

Every frequency we might use in the Air we can use a bajillion times easier in a copper wire. Each (twisted) Pair of copperwires has all the frequency we have in the air for itself. That is what I meant with "each cable is a seperate medium".

 

Everyone using the one Wireless Medium we got, has to share it with everyone else using the one wireless medium we got.

With wired stuff you got your own, seperated medium for yourself. With each and every cable.

 

Certainly.

But we can at least make it harder for an attacker then "being in the general vicinity of the target or it's access point".

 

Last I heard laws still consider hacking into a Wireless network less of a crime then breaking into the room and hooking up a CAT cable.

With wireless it can even become your fault for having a Wireless network that can be (easily) hacked to begin with. No or only WPA encryption is considered negligent on your end.

 

With wired connections we only consider encryption (at all) with security relevant stuff.

With wireless we consider a minimum amount of encryption as "just about as save as non-encrypted wired networks".

 

RE Pacemakers; Bluetooth has low power requirements, low protocol overhead, and the data itself can still be encrypted; basically it fits all the needs of an adjustable, monitorable, purpose built appliance like a pacemaker.

 

Security, even over hardline, is not a If You're Breached scenario, but a When You're Breached scenario. Spending all your time keeping people out is a lost battle; You still take security measures, but what happens once breached is infinitely more important than the actual breach itself. The whole "wired is more secure therefore we should only use wired" is only relevant if you're in an isolated system. The second you connect to the outside world your interior connection type is meaningless, they could be anywhere in the world and still get on your network. It doesn't matter if you plug your device into a wall or connect via WiFi hotspot; if you get on the internet at all, 1000km and 10 feet are effectively the same distance.

 

There are very few truly isolated systems in the world, and yes, those probably don't use wireless connections.

 

If you think you're on a 'separated medium' when you're the only one jacked into a wall socket, you're mistaken. As long as that wall socket goes somewhere you're accessible. Period.

 

The hyperbole about the only secure computer being buried was trying to prove a point: If you're connected in any way to a network, it doesn't matter how, you're accessible. You are almost never going to be hacked in a point-to-point connection, it's going to be through the network you're on. How you access the network is irrelevant.

 

Security starts with the Routers, Managed Switches, and Servers, not the devices on the network.

 

[Actually, Security starts with people, the majority of Credit Card theft occurs physically in person still, not by hacking a computer. It's like car crashes versus airplane crashes - airplane crashes get all the flack because more people are killed at once, but overall car crashes cause way more deaths per year; same with something like CC - far more are stolen in small batches by a single person than are stolen in large groups by a guy with a computer (but that guy gets 1000s at once, so it just looks worse). Of course, the new EMV system aims to stop that using point-to-point encryption... (i.e. the chip & pin set up where you now physically insert your card); Even that's already been breached...]

 

Security is more about controlling data than controlling access. And wireless systems are not only far more convenient, but easier to work with from a user point of view; as Tasha pointed out above.

[Zeropoint]

I've always found it amusing that some people won't order things online because they're worried about someone getting their credit card information, yet they don't give a second thought to handing their physical card to someone who'll take it out of sight for minutes at a time.

[Old Man]

I've always found it amusing that some people won't order things online because they're worried about someone getting their credit card information, yet they don't give a second thought to handing their physical card to someone who'll take it out of sight for minutes at a time.

 

True, but that only happens in backward third world countries that are only now implementing EMV cards.  Slowly.  In civilized places the merchant never touches your card or takes it out of your possession.

[Old Man]

As someone who used to hack phone trunks... wired =/= secure.

 

The only secure computer has all it's networking capability removed, is powered down, placed in a fire safe, in a concrete cube 200 meters thick, lined with lead, and buried 1000 meters underground.

 

Everything else can be breached.

 

Yes, but it matters how easily.  Wired is not perfectly secure, but I can't invisibly breach it from two blocks away with a shotgun antenna either.  That's the real problem with wireless--the traffic is freely accessible.  In theory strong encryption would make that moot, but WPA2 is the best we have, and it's not what I would call weapons grade.  If someone really wants your wireless traffic, they can probably crack it with a modest investment in Amazon AWS compute power, or spoof the initial connection if possible.  And that's wifi--cellular is even more vulnerable since there is no authentication to the cell tower.

 

That said, I send passwords over WPA2 all the time.  How can you not and still function in modern society?  People put up with wired if the machine they're using isn't portable, but now we all carry supercomputers around with us on our belts or in our purses, and wired isn't going to fly there.

[ghost-angel]

True, but that only happens in backward third world countries that are only now implementing EMV cards.  Slowly.  In civilized places the merchant never touches your card or takes it out of your possession.

 

Like the US... where the service industry seems to be fighting EMV tooth and nail...

[Christopher]

ie I could hook up external speakers with a wire, but it's really handy to turn on the speakers and then just have them handshake with my phone that is sitting in my purse. Without hooking up wires. Same with the wireless headphones. I love the handsfree bluetooth that came with the car it's very handy to use. WiFi is great for my tablet and phone (and cellular is a nice fall back).

 

This is like a discussion where people talk about what is the best desktop OS. It comes down to what you are doing and what meets your needs. There will always be a need/use for wireless networks. For most people that kind of networking is good enough security and good enough speed to meet their needs. Also not having to fiddle with yet another cable is a huge thing for them.

Unless somebody else is blocking all the Frequencies - like everyone else with the same devices wich are already in use. Then you would love to have that wired throwback that is a lot harder to (accidently) disrupt. Yes there are cases where wireless is more convenient. Even some where it is objectively better. But only if it has the Bandwidth to keep up with what you want to do.

Sound transmission might be one of the cases where Wireless should stay relevant. We humans only can detect a fraction of all possible sounds, so even a rough approxmiation like MP3 is "good enough" for us. And the amount of humans that want to communicate is not nearly increasing as fast as the otehr stuff we need bandwidth for.

A fully voiced game like Elder Scrolls Online has only around 1/5 of it's data in the Voiceovers- And those a high quality Voiceover+Lipmovement+Gestures combinations.

 

Because if one thing is certain is that our bandwith and storage needs just keep increasing. Digital representation get exponentially more space costly as thier detail doubles. If we have the storage and bandwith to store and transmit in quality X effectively, somebody will find a reason to have Quality X+5. Wich increases storage and Bandwith needs to the 5th power.

In the end bandwidth needs will dictate wich transmission method is viable. If wireless can not keep up, it will loose it's relevancy. And there are unavoidable limits to the bandwidth you can possibly squeeze into any piece of space. And you have to spend extra just making it remotely as secure as wired always was.

While wired has the same limits, it has those per cable. Unless we figure out how to send Wireless signals through other dimensions (wich in turn will be limited too), we hit the cap sooner rather then later.

 

I still remember the time when 65536 color images were good. When a 233 MHz Processor with 256 MiB RAM and a Modem was far enough to use the Internet. That was an ancient age called 2000.

I life in a age where 32-bit systems are getting a thing of the past. Where processor have multiple cores - even a GPU - each rated in Giga Hz. Where RAM is measured in GiB. Where internet speeds are measured in megabit/s and soon gigabit/s, rather then kilobit. Was that previous point really only 1.5 decades in the past?

 

We recently had to make a drastic change in our storage mediums (HDD to SSD). Not because the old one was out of room for Capacity - but because it was out of room to increase the Bandwidth to access said memory.

 

Bandwidth - not capacity - is what makes a application viable. For if you can not access the data in meaningfull times, it is useless to you.

 

If you think you're on a 'separated medium' when you're the only one jacked into a wall socket, you're mistaken. As long as that wall socket goes somewhere you're accessible. Period.

 

The hyperbole about the only secure computer being buried was trying to prove a point: If you're connected in any way to a network, it doesn't matter how, you're accessible. You are almost never going to be hacked in a point-to-point connection, it's going to be through the network you're on. How you access the network is irrelevant.

 

Security starts with the Routers, Managed Switches, and Servers, not the devices on the network.

I said "seperate medium" in the sense of "Useable Electromagnetic Spectrum."

If you try to use 237 MHz to send something via airwaves, you collide with everyone else trying to send something on 237 Mhz or close.

In a wire you got the whole electromagnetic spectrum to yourself. Or at least more to yourself then you had it on the airwaves.

 

And as Old Man says, there is still the different between "very easy" and "not easy".

Saying "I can't secure it, so I don't try" is like saying "I can't stop the rain, so I don't build a shelter to stay out of it."

Between NAT and Carrier Grade NAT it can be borderline impossible to even nail down the IP adress of a Router. Much less get both NAT layers to agree to let you through. And that is if you own the router and want it reachable from the internet (I heard in the UK it is pretty easy to get a fixed public IP adress; but in Germany it does not work this way).

 

We just keep sending unencrypted data across wired connections without even thinking about it. A little bit of encryption for the odd password here and there is enough.

Yet with wireless we encrypt Every. Single. Byte. Just to keep the security impact manageable. We encrypt not for additional secutiry, but because otherwise Wireless would be not secure enough to watch a static Website without any passwords.

 

True, but that only happens in backward third world countries that are only now implementing EMV cards.  Slowly.  In civilized places the merchant never touches your card or takes it out of your possession.

Now that you mention it, this is how I pay at my supermarket. The cashier has to enable the cardreader and tell me when it is ready and I can take out my card respectively (but I learned the telltales of the device). But I operate it on my own. The card never leaves my sight.

[ghost-angel]

This is one of those conversations where the more I talk the less gets through.

 

Suffice to say, wireless is not dead. It is not going away. Cellular is encrypted by default and is not totally insecure. You do not clash with everyone on the same RF as you in the same way you do not clash with everyone using the same trunk line as you (or did you think a building ran individual fiber runs for each computer on a network from the switch to the modem leading outside? Because they don't, it's one 'wire'). I would use a repurposed TV satellite dish, not a shotgun mic, to intercept wireless communications, were I that bored and/or inept. There is a lot more bandwidth in the air than you think there is. Hacking a network from the internet side using anonymous IP redirectors is much easier than anything 'in person' or even 'in vicinity', making the argument of how you're on the network moot.

 

I'm out.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Most of the hype around wireless is from people who don't know very much about electronics or computing, like middle managers and city planners.

[ghost-angel]

A reminder that Wireless does have limitations; An article that reminded us to adjust some setting in our own Wireless Network this afternoon...

 

http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/01/cabling_is_good/

 

a point to the naysayers on that (though a properly secured switch with a segregated public network using proper domain controllers is generally as safe from war drivers finding your network as the random internet hacker is coming in the other door... the security concerns - assuming the sysadmins are doing their jobs - is minimal IMO), The rest though, the rest points out the inherent problems in WiFi.

[Tasha]

I said "seperate medium" in the sense of "Useable Electromagnetic Spectrum."

If you try to use 237 MHz to send something via airwaves, you collide with everyone else trying to send something on 237 Mhz or close.

In a wire you got the whole electromagnetic spectrum to yourself. Or at least more to yourself then you had it on the airwaves.

 

 

You DO know that there are collisions across Copper and even fiber. We just have technology and network protocols that prevent most of those. Also, just like there is technology that allows for copper and fiber to be divided into more sub frequencies, the same is true for wireless. They are figuring how to put more signals closer together without cross talk etc.

 

 

BTW Online games keep as many functions to the client software as possible. So when a character says a canned voice over, that's local to your machine. The trigger in most cases is also local to your machine. really only the position data for moving objects, and info on what abilities are being used are sent over the network. Even the slowest WiFi is more than adequate for that task.

 

Games really aren't diving bandwidth issues. Streaming Video and Audio are taking up a ton of bandwidth. So watching Hulu, or Netflix takes way more bandwidth than any game. Games are still engineered to keep bandwidth needs to a minimum. The less data that needs to be sent means that a game is more responsive and therefore more fun to play.

 

I think you (Christopher) have a lot of ideas about how networks work and data is transmitted that isn't quite correct.

 

I also think that you are going to be VERY surprised in the next decade with the direction that Wireless innovation will take.

[Christopher]

Suffice to say, wireless is not dead. It is not going away.

Then it is good that I did not say anything in the direction:

"Wireless technology might be related more and more to fringe uses.

It will propably hold it's place for Mobile Communication and W-Lan. Bluetooth is already limited past easy useability. Turning off W-LAN because more and more a "must do" rather then "can do".

While we will retain mobile internet, I doubt it can keep pace with the increasingly more complex (and bigger) applications we are going to roll out. Patches will propably have to be downloaded via a W-Lan link, rather then proper mobile internet. We might even have to dig out some of those old tricks we used to squeeze extra bandwith out of Modems, like transmitting the data compressed."

 

 

 

A reminder that Wireless does have limitations; An article that reminded us to adjust some setting in our own Wireless Network this afternoon...

 

http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/01/cabling_is_good/

 

a point to the naysayers on that (though a properly secured switch with a segregated public network using proper domain controllers is generally as safe from war drivers finding your network as the random internet hacker is coming in the other door... the security concerns - assuming the sysadmins are doing their jobs - is minimal IMO), The rest though, the rest points out the inherent problems in WiFi.

The colission issue is perhaps the biggest limiting factor. Wireles is a step back into the age where layer 2 Seperation (Switches) were not that common. At least we knew to avoid ideas like token ring this time around.

 

You DO know that there are collisions across Copper and even fiber. We just have technology and network protocols that prevent most of those. Also, just like there is technology that allows for copper and fiber to be divided into more sub frequencies, the same is true for wireless. They are figuring how to put more signals closer together without cross talk etc.

 

 

BTW Online games keep as many functions to the client software as possible. So when a character says a canned voice over, that's local to your machine. The trigger in most cases is also local to your machine. really only the position data for moving objects, and info on what abilities are being used are sent over the network. Even the slowest WiFi is more than adequate for that task.

 

Games really aren't diving bandwidth issues. Streaming Video and Audio are taking up a ton of bandwidth. So watching Hulu, or Netflix takes way more bandwidth than any game. Games are still engineered to keep bandwidth needs to a minimum. The less data that needs to be sent means that a game is more responsive and therefore more fun to play.

 

I think you (Christopher) have a lot of ideas about how networks work and data is transmitted that isn't quite correct.

 

I also think that you are going to be VERY surprised in the next decade with the direction that Wireless innovation will take.

Electromagnetic Interference is of course not totally avoidable. Where electricity, there Magnetic fields and vice versa. One of the core rules of Electronics.

 

But for wires magenetic field induction is a side effect with very limited range. You can put a Cat 5 cable next to a 230 Volt power cable and the Ethernet is not significantly disrupted.

You can put 100 Ethernet cables into a big bundel and it will propably not break down due to magnetic interference.

 

For Wireless magnetic induction it is the core principle of work.

The farther the range, the more power you have to put into it and the more airspace you blanket with your signals.

A 100 meter wire might pollute the airspaces along it's 100m path (a cylinder) slightly.

A 100 meter range anetanna will pollute the airsapce in a 100m sphere greatly.

 

"BTW Online games keep as many functions to the client software as possible. So when a character says a canned voice over, that's local to your machine. The trigger in most cases is also local to your machine. really only the position data for moving objects, and info on what abilities are being used are sent over the network. Even the slowest WiFi is more than adequate for that task."

That is true for play. Asuming game streaming does not hit off.

If it does not, what about instalaltion? Those audio and videofiles have to get to your computer first. A good figure for a modern MMORPG is 20 GiB of disk space. That would be the entire monthly limit on the best mobile internet deal I could find. And not to mention the time it would take...

 

There are no doubt developments in Wireless internet technology in the works. We use it, we try to make it better, faster, stronger. But as the article that ghost-angel linked points out: the more we use Wireless, the more we have colission and the worse it get's overall.

As I said, Wireless works wonderfully for it's small subset of purposes that only it can do. It has done so way before the digital age, and it will continue to do so well into it. But it's abiltiy to scale upward is absolutely terrible compared to wires so it will continue to stay in those niches.

It will complement wires. But replacing them? That I have to witness to believe it.

 

I think bandwidth needs will keep increasing and that will decide wich technology wins. Wireless might hit it's scalability limit long before it becomes fast enough for our ever increasing bandwidth needs.

If at all, the bandwidth needs have ceased to grow as much in the last decade because we had a ton of roadblocks to get out of the way. They mostly are now:

Breaking of the 100 MBit/s speed limit of HHD via SSD? Done

Breaking the 133 MBit/s speed limit of ATA via SATA? Done

Breaking the 3.2 GiB limit of 32-bit with 64 bit? Done

Breaking numerous minor limits by replaceing BIOS+MBR through UEFI+GPT? Done

Avoiding heat and miniturisation issues by using multiple weak cores rather then ever bigger cores? Done

Standartisation of OnBoard GPU's by Intel and AMD (it's a heat, driver and power issue)? Done; Granted this helps mobile devices more then fixed Computers.

Retiring of the Analogue Phone network with IP-Telehpone to get more digital bandwidth on landlines? In Progress

Replacing IPv4 with IPv6 to finally get back to the original IP idea (every computer or at least router having a static, public IP)? In Progress. I hope I see it finished somewhen next decade. Seriously, could we get on with that already?

 

Unless against all expectations we reach a point and say "k, that is detailed enough. No reason to crank it up anymore" and that point is so low, wireless and mobile internet can keep up (because then the people using it would be the limit, and that grows linerary).