California passes Wi-Fi user protection bill

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The point of view seems local

Being a daily user of several of these technologies, including area WiFi, Edge, EVDO, dial-up, cable, DSL and traditional T1 (and soon WiMax), I find it odd that one could brand any of these as 'obsolete', or as 'the future'. The deployment of these varies so wildly that there is no single profile you can give to any one of thes technologies, much less to a comparison between them, which is not strictly mimited to the particular location at which you are observing. Even satellite, which one might expect to work the same wherever you are, varies depending on where in the world you are, since factors like orbits and routing for low altitude satellites cause different response rates and capacities at different locations, and latency for geosynchronous satellites will prevent them from ever being a viable competitioin where other technologies are available.

I'm not quite certain what you mean when you say WiFi technology is the same as garage door openers, but one can also argue that anything which relies on electromagnetic radiation in the 10 kHz to 100 GHz range is pretty much the same technology. After all, they all depend on a transmitter/receiver pair, an antenna at each end, some way of modulating and demodulating, and from that level up in the OSI model you are on your own.

Arguing over which one is the 'right' technology is like arguing over which is the 'best' computer. And if we really want to promote a Finphone as the magic bullet, then a Finphone (or in my favorite case, a Swissphone...) which has CDMA and EVDO and Bluetooth and WiFi and IR and a USB connection and a slot which can take any number of other connection types is much closer than something which is limited to any one of the above. What I really need is a solution to the tiny-town screens and keyboards on any phone-like unit. Processor power in a palmtop unit is great, but most of them are a bit troublesome when you want to do a presentation to a couple of hundred people who didn't all bring their own Finphones, or who don't want to risk forming a SuperGaming network hive to see the PowerPoint.

Posted by: gardoglee   Posted on: 08/30/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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