Why I like 802.11
> At 01:20 11/08/2001 -0700, Glenn(at)glennf.com wrote: >> >>>By the time 3G is actually possible, in 2 to 3 years, 802.11a will
> >>>have permeated every fiber of our being. 802.11b will have been
> >>>supplanted with 802.11g (22 Mbps+) and we will be spanning the
> >>>country with line of sight to the horizon links. >
> psycho 802.11b head who thinks the 'world is his oyster'. dismissed.
>
Fleischmann actually writes about 802.11, rather than implements it. (Weblog here: http://80211b.weblogger.com/ , http://glennf.com/ ).
Not that stops anyone from being a psycho head. Case in point:
I'm still slightly shell-shocked that 802.11b is even being considered a competitor to 3G. I spent my time this year waiting to see whether my hunches on the 802.11b vs Bluetooth war would play out. Yeah, what happened to that, huh? It's like putting a bet on Wimbledon, only discover your seed has gone off to invade the Sudetenland. With just their tennis rackets.
I am still uncomfortable with the idea of saying that Bluetooth was doomed. Sure, Bluetooth felt creepy: a proprietary solution to a problem I didn't see as one, overly complex, and deliberately crippled by the marketing requirements of its creators. But technically, I had no backup to say that it was doomed. Like Chris says, none of us are technical ungineers. I just really didn't like it, and wanted it to die.
But my desires have rarely panned out in the real world. E.g: I was a big Atari ST fan. I voted Labour out of a hope they were nice. I want babies to be all right.
About the only thing I liked that actually was a big success was the Internet. I like 802.11b for similar reasons that I liked the Net. It's a sloppy, mongrel technology that's cheap to hack together, easy to reappropriate, and under the exclusive ownership of no one group.
I find the likelihood of nationwide coverage about as unlikely as james@backspace being the new Cliff Stanford, but then Demon were fucking unlikely too. I like that the possibility at least exists.
I like that I can share my bandwidth with the rest of my street for about $200 (and indeed do, largely without realising it). I like the fact that I can share my local Starbuck's bandwidth with the rest of my street too (if those cards drop below $50, I bet someone could make a little battery-powered handgrenade that would share it with the coffee-shop down the road too).
I like that with a T1 line, a bank loan, and a bunch of cards, I could be a wireless provider too. I like that I'd probably have to pull the next James Cronin out of school during holidays to keep it running. It would be fun.
I like - no I admit it, I fucking love - the fact that me me me wrote a driver patch that gets an 802.11 card working on Linux <http://www.spesh.com/danny/wlan/>. I am an UTTER DILETTANTE in these matters, and I've still ended up contributing something that people use. I like that.
I like that on the BAWUG mailing list, the 802.11 vendors are having their authentication proposal ripped to shreds (before it's got out the door) thanks to a bunch of psycho 802.11b heads who've trawled through it, and happen to have very good professional security arguments. I like that WEP already has been ripped to shreds by the same wackos, so that people are already aware of the problems.
I like the fact Nokia is proposing putting SIMM cards into 802.11 cards to assist with the authentication system. I like that a bunch of others people are saying that that is an awful idea, not because of technical merit, or whatever, but because it would potentially provide a monopoly lock-in. I like that everyone, CEOs and techies, ISPs and IEEE, frantically criss-crossing these camps like tugship diplomats, trying to come to a compromise.
Do I like this because it is some kind of crazy fistfight anarchy, man?
No - I like it because it a crazy fistfight anarchy that has spilled out onto the streets. I'm sure there are exactly the same kind of fistfights breaking out within 3G companies all across the world, but they'll all little fistfights, and in a lot of cases the good guys are outnumbered in their companies by the bad, and they can't call outside for reinforcements.
If there's one thing I still fondly believe, it's "in public" is still one of the few spaces where the good guys outnumber the bad . Moreover, in public is one of the few spaces where good people cannot give up and go home, because there is nowhere else to go. I like the fights in public. I like that the Net is a public space. I like that 802.11 is being publically fought over by people who care, and whose agenda isn't that it's their job.
So, those are the reasons I like 802.11. Note that none of them imply that it has a chance in hell of succeeding - in fact, I'd suggest that some of them actively work against it succeeding. And in order to succeed it may tronsmogrify into something horrific.
As against Bluetooth, I'm not going to predict it will succeed, because
I'm too scared I might be wrong.