A little while back I was in
I really wanted to say something like: 'This market won't happen because, however good the services are, the American wireless networks are too flaky to deliver them'.
But I thought it would be rude for a foreigner to say such a thing.
Since then I've marvelled at the happy talk of Cloud Computing: Huge market; Allows small, portable, OS-agnostic, computing devices; brings in New Nomadic Age. That sort of thing.
Now just look at this story from CNET: T-Mobile users cut off for a month.
Pity the Nomadic surfer deprived of his wave.
Even at the best of times, the
It's the same over here. The networks get clogged with traffic but the operators lag behind the demand in upgrading the networks. Outside major inner-city areas, GPRS is the
So, as traffic increases, calls drop, connections can't be made, data transfer rates are painfully slow.
And the 21st century dream of Cloud Computing founders on a Hottentot network.
East Coast mainline trains from National Express "Free wifi on-board for all passengers", yeah right.
800 people all sucking on an 11mb/s (sorry should be Mb/s, but it definitely felt like mb/s) link. Worked better with the flaky 3G-wifi bridge on my Nokia (and that was poor). Won't be rushing back to that as a USP...
All together "Wireless doesn't work".
Simonsse you are so, so right. And it's so annoying. It's very common in very many WiFi installations, in my experience - the installers take no account of the likely number of users. Result: misery for everyone (except the lucky b. who gets on first).
I suspect if the East Coast regularly had 800 passengers on the train then a) they wouldn't have gone bankrupt and b) they'd provide multiple links. Actually getting uninterupted high speed wireless to a 125mph train is a feat in itself and a very expensive one at that. I think we forget the grief of only 10 years ago playing with modem cables under hotel beds trying to download our e-mail to a laptop which didn't really want to do it.
Indeed I do remember it Mike, and a miserable process it was. But while we've moved on a mile since then, I still wouldn't like to have to rely on a wireless link to get my OS, application software and stored files every time I turn on a portable computer. I was amazed to find out how little 3G there actually is.