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Networking The Internet Wireless Networking

Making Wireless Carriers Play Together 58

Posted by timothy from the until-the-next-bottleneck-at-least dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ok, so the idea of opening all Wi-Fi networks in a misthought utopian vision didn't go over so well. But no one discussed the best part of open Wi-Fi networks: bonding different Wi-Fi and mobile carriers to get the best price and decent performance. We could save money and avoid lock in by bouncing to whoever gives us the best rate, and, when we need speed, jump on all of them at once for a network bonded boost."
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Making Wireless Carriers Play Together More

Making Wireless Carriers Play Together

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  • Go Away (Score:3, Informative)

    by Antipater ( 2053064 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @02:34PM (#42753935)
    You don't get to make another Slashdot submission to say "and another thing!" just because nobody liked your first one.

  • the hotspots have too many limitations

    which is why everyone is buying a smartphone. the service is not that expensive if you're on a multi line account

  • Free wifi? Don't forget the SWAT team! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Police Raid Wrong House, Steal 18-Year-Old Girl's Computer Thanks to Unsecured WiFi Connection

    http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/29/police-raid-wrong-house-through-technolo [reason.com]

    • At some point an IP address would stop becoming sufficient justification to raid someone's house.

      • Re:Free wifi? Don't forget the SWAT team! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @03:02PM (#42754275) Homepage Journal

        At some point an IP address would stop becoming sufficient justification to raid someone's house.

        That point will probably be when the cops bust down the wrong door, and a firefight ensues.

        Which, considering the pure idiocy of Knee-Jerk America, will likely result in even more attempts to ban guns, instead of focusing on and fixing the actual problem of overzealous, militarized police departments.

        • That point will probably be when the cops bust down the wrong door, and a firefight ensues.

          Nearly already happened. [nbcnews.com] But it was for kiddee porn so, it was ok.

        • Not a firefight, maybe something like the 'away from home-home' of a Senator/Congressman, who happens to be entertaining his boyfriend at the time...then a law will be passed requiring more than an IP address.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        There are thousands (? millions) of free WiFi hot spots and I have never heard of a SWAT team being sent to any of them because of "IP abuse".

      • At some point an IP address would stop becoming sufficient justification to raid someone's house

        By and large it is NOT sufficient. I work for a company that tracks and recovers stolen laptops. We recover up to 150 per week. Rarely will the police be willing to knock on a door based on IP address data alone - They almost always need additional forensic evidence before they are willing to engage.

        • Call me cynical, but I think that probably has more to do with the nature of the crime (theft) rather than the quantity or quality of the evidence. An IP address is plenty good enough when someone says something that's a particular type of stupid on a webforum.

          • Call me cynical, but I think that probably has more to do with the nature of the crime

            oh, you think you're cynical - I assumed it was an unwillingness on the part of the department to prosecute simple crimes like public urination.

            • They love those. They get to use them to pad thier "sex-offender" bust stats, which are good as gold come budget time.

              • They love those. They get to use them to pad thier "sex-offender" bust stats, which are good as gold come budget time.

                Oh, right. I forgot that pissing on the side of the road is a no-voting, no-guns for-life crime nowadays.

      • What you're saying isn't much different than a police force kicking in someone's door based on eye witness testimony. Which has been proved many times to be both unreliable, misleading, and/or incorrect.(I could google more links than I could fit in that sentence, JFGI if you need proof of that statement)

        Did that person really see you? Or do they think they see you? Hard to decide and/or prove both ways. I wont add anything more to that statement/question, take it as it is.

  • "Making", You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

    Peopel might make corporations, but after that no one Makes them do anything. The Corporations make the rules of how you'll use and be charged for their services.

    Go re-watch The Matrix, and the Terminator series. They're allegory for the Intangible Thought-Machine Invasion. Protip: The Machines Won. The rule system are now self perpetuating, and only those whe ally with them stand a chance of a decent life. You're e

  • What's the point? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Nethemas the Great ( 909900 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @02:44PM (#42754047)
    Just because you can connect to multiple spigots doesn't meant that they don't eventually lead to the same water main. As for saving the customer money Android already provides for the ability to switch over to configured WiFi hotspots when detected.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mcelrath ( 8027 )

      Sure Android will switch to a wifi hotspot, but that paywall/clickwall the provider put up will cause all apps/browsers to download the clickwall instead of their intended destination, and break. I frequently find myself having to disable wifi because I'm in a coffee shop that I frequent, and don't want to deal with your clickwall just so I can pull up google maps to get directions. Happens in airports especially. I'd just rather use the 3G than deal with your clickwall, for some trivial info lookup. An

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        Sure Android will switch to a wifi hotspot, but that paywall/clickwall the provider put up will cause all apps/browsers to download the clickwall instead of their intended destination, and break. I frequently find myself having to disable wifi because I'm in a coffee shop that I frequent, and don't want to deal with your clickwall just so I can pull up google maps to get directions. Happens in airports especially. I'd just rather use the 3G than deal with your clickwall, for some trivial info lookup. Android needs to figure out whether it has a real connection or a clickwall, before routing all your traffic through the new connection.

        Switching between wifi and cellular is far from perfect. I don't believe e.g. Skype can really handle switching upstream providers at all...

        this can be automated.. there's even standards for it, like wispr.
        pretty much nobody uses it though.

        this sounds like an american problem though. the areas where you would have multiple providers are such that you should have pretty decent 3g already.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zouden ( 232738 )

          Android doesn't use 3G if it's connected to a wifi network, regardless of whether the wifi connection works. That's the problem.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gl4ss ( 559668 )

          (and elsewhere what's the point when your 3g is all you can download and 10 bucks a month..)

          • And where, pray tell me, can I get this mythical unlimited 3g service for $10/month. Most certainly nowhere in the US.

  • Someone over at /. HQ has spent some time on a vision quest in Sonora. You should have left the Peace Pipe in Arizona.

  • Wishful Thinking (Score:3)

    by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @03:04PM (#42754293) Homepage Journal

    You all know the words - it's sing along time!

    Why can't we be friends,
    Why can't we be friends...

  • Why isn't there one giant coast to coast network with many providers, the same way there is one internet with many ISP? Other than the obvious reasons of benefitting consumers.

  • Wouldn't mind seeing what options exist (Score:3)

    by Yoik ( 955095 ) on Thursday January 31, 2013 @03:17PM (#42754487) Journal

    I am in a neighborhood with choices in broadband, and have considered buying redundancy. Current promo options make it very feasible.

    Comcast here has reliability issues due both to overhead wires that go out for days(annually), and an irritating tendency to show lag (or momentary outages) in the 10-90 second range(daily or worse). I assume the latter is due to doing service on the live system, but is impossible for me to diagnose as it is gone before I can characterize the problem to even complain.

    I wouldn't mind adding a cheap DSL if I can bond the two in a way to improve my service, but I am not clear how to do that. True bonded service might work, but I don't know how to set that up on two IP addresses. My current router won't do it, and I haven't looked into equipment choices.

    Any suggestions?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I am in a neighborhood with choices in broadband, and have considered buying redundancy. Current promo options make it very feasible.

      Comcast here has reliability issues due both to overhead wires that go out for days(annually), and an irritating tendency to show lag (or momentary outages) in the 10-90 second range(daily or worse). I assume the latter is due to doing service on the live system, but is impossible for me to diagnose as it is gone before I can characterize the problem to even complain.

      I wouldn't mind adding a cheap DSL if I can bond the two in a way to improve my service, but I am not clear how to do that. True bonded service might work, but I don't know how to set that up on two IP addresses. My current router won't do it, and I haven't looked into equipment choices.

      Any suggestions?

      Try something like this:
      http://www.amazon.com/Syswan-SW24-Dual-WAN-Router/dp/B007SIT0VC

      I used it for a Cable and DSL combo. Might need to reboot it every couple of months, but it's good otherwise. Pretty simple web UI.

    • Any suggestions?

      You can't bond two different ISP's, unless you own the end of a tunnel somewhere else (maybe a VPS), but you can pretty easily load balance and do failover with pfSense v2 [pfsense.org]. The quick version: you set up both interfaces, both gateways, then you set up a gateway group with your fast ISP as Tier 1 and your slower ISP as Tier 2, and then in your LAN firewall rules, you put in an 'allow to all' rule at the end, with the gateway set to the gateway group. There's also a tick box to make the use o

  • That some kid is whining because he can't afford but bandwidth to download p0rn fast enough?

    Right now there is enough speed on the mobile networks, at least in the city, to do what you want to do. Virgin 4G is pretty fast, when it is working. Even ATT LTE is pretty fast, but the limits makes it useless for anything real.

    As far as WiFi, again we have to look at where the money is. The cities could do what is suggested, but they have been thwarted.

    Eventually, hopefully, we will not have our mobile te

  • My Android phone already switches to configured WiFI when available, or am I supposed to buy accounts w/ all the carriers in my area?

    I don't see how bonding 2 connections to the same access point helps me any.

    I know I can bond multiple connections from my network, but is bonding connections from different carriers even possible?

  • So you want to get a bunch of mobile hotspots in a room and then dynamically choose one based on some rules? You could used pfSense off the shelf for time-of-day and bonding purposes but I don't think it will handle packet accounting. For automatic routing look into the meshing algorithms (e.g. BATMAN) but that doesn't do everything you want either.

    Could we convince you to save a ton of money and have a cable modem put in instead?

  • What would be really cool in a not too distant future...

    Interoperable networks to the point that you can go buy a phone anywhere and use it on any network. No more CDMA vs GSM vs iDEN.

    Postpaid pay-as-you-go plans with every carrier

    Software on the phone that functions similar to a least cost routing algorithm...I.E. I want to send a text message right now, go check with every carrier and get their current SMS rate, then when you have it, select the carrier with the lowest rate and use them to send

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Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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