Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesPuck12
I was talking to a buddy who's a computer engineer and he said that this wouldn't compete very well against 3G/LTE network.
Apparently, WiFi doesn't have hand over like the cell network does, which means every time you leave the radius of one access point and enter another, your device disconnects and connects to a new access point.
The range of the access points are a lot shorter than the cell towers which means if you're in a car, bus, ctrain, etc, you'll always be connecting to a new access point that it will barely work while you're moving at high speed.
As for having WiFi access in the dome, he said it would be pretty difficult to implement it since each access point can only handle couple hundred users when using all 3 WiFi channels. They could use lower power in the access points and put more access points but it would be pretty hard to balance it in such a crowded area. He said theoretically, you could put a low power access point below each chair and make it work but that doesn't sound very viable.
So pretty much, what he said was it will just be "hotspots" around the city, nothing like a cell network.
Anyway, I would love to hear some opinion from someone with experience in this field regarding the above points.
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Access point hand offs are certainly possible - it depends on the technology. The fact that when I enter a Shaw wifi zone, it automatically authenticates my device, leads me to believe that there is a high likelihood of it being supported.
You are right about total coverage though, it won't be universal except in the highest density areas. That won't impact a vast majority of internet traffic though, which is burst in nature - ie you use it for a short time, then wait while the data is 'consumed' by the user. Even streaming video is possible under conditions like this, assuming the platform you are using has basic buffering. Compare to a cell network, where if you had a dead spot of several seconds, you would surely notice.
Of course if you had 10-20k people at the dome trying to use the WIFI it would become congested - same with the current cell traffic. There are ways to maintain a somewhat reasonable level of service with basic traffic shaping though, if Shaw really cares.