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The Chaos of BYOW (Bring Your Own Wi-Fi)

It all started as an innocent joke:

scoble zoli wifi

Robert Scoble was sitting in the front row @ Apple’s WWDC conference while I was following the tweetstream from home.  Little did we know out joke would soon turn serious, as Steve Job’s keynote demo crashed when his shiny new iPhone 4 could not get a network connection.  Ars Technica offers detailed technical analysis of what may have happened, citing wi-fi experts who think the iPhone 4 may have a software glitch – but beyond that, they go deeply into analyzing the roots of network congestion at major gatherings.

It’s a great read, I have nothing to add on the technical side, just a little speculation on what brought this potential chaos about, and how to avoid it.

In short, we’re in a vicious circle.   The best “should-know-better” conferences have famously failed to provide sufficient wifi, including  Web 2.0, LeWeb, Gnomedex, Microsoft PDC, Google I/O… you name it.   We’re not talking about Birdwatchers’ Annual Convention or Road Builders Conferences – no, these are hi-tech events heavily attended by geeks, analysts, media, bloggers – the wifi_proliferationalways on, ever connected types, who will not tolerate being offline and will come up with their solution, as soon as the technology exist.

Thus, Bring Your Own Wifi was born – first the dedicated USB sticks with their $60 a month fees, then Mi-Fi, and now a flood of smartphones all providing their own hotspots.  Now all these BYOW devices wreak havoc and cause congestion.

Now, there are some cosmetic improvements we could all do, for example stop broadcasting our hotspot’s SSID. Not that it would reduce the behind-the-scenes congestion, but at least it would not clog the list of Wi-Fi for anyone else.  (Even this is easier said than done: some hotspots do not offer the option to shut broadcasting off, and even more sadly several devices refuse to connect to a Wi-Fi unless the SSID is listed).

We’re heading into a period of wireless chaos – it probably won’t be so bad on the road, in remote places, not even while using public transportation – but it will definitely get worse at places of expected high Mi-Fi / hotspot concentration.

We’ve come full circle. It all started by the lack of “centralized” connectivity, we all came up with our own ad-hoc solution and now we’re spoiling the game for each other.  I know I’d stop fiddling with my  EVO (or the gadget of the day) if there was rock-solid wi-fi at all conferences.  It’s time conference organizers step up to the plate.  If they don’t know how, I suggest they talk to Eric.

P.S. On a ligther note, some people already discovered the option of using the SSID for messaging. Is this the next marketing opportunity?

rwang wifi ads

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(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

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On Those Android Superphones Again

vic gundotra Wow, for not being a gadget-blog, we’re spending quite a bit of attention on Smartphones @ CloudAve. Are we turning into gadget-freaks? 🙂

Like Ben, I’ve also received an Android-powered Sprint HTC EVO at the Google I/O Conference, and unlike him, I will be able to use it on Sprint, if I so chose.  As a New Zealander, Ben is out of luck – the Sprint CDMA phone does not work there, so I understand his rant, but let’s make it clear: Google did not ignore international attendees.  All paid participants (we we, bloggers, were not)  had received a phone weeks prior to the conference: US attendees a Motorola Droid, International ones an unlocked Nexus One.

Which is why I was shocked to hear Vic Gundotra’s announcement on the second day that all attendees would receive the next HTC wonderphone (hey, was that Vic’s Steve Jobs-like “One More Thing” moment?).   Since this somewhat invalidates the previous phone giveaway, I can’t help but think that it was a last-minute addition to Google’s original game plan – and that leaves me wondering about the reasons.

I can only speculate, but perhaps Google and Sprint wanted to have a few thousand “testers” for the phone before it’s official launch on June 4th?  In fact not just any users, but developers – but that would make even more sense if they had early access to Froyo (Android 2.2) which is announced, but not yet available.  Both new HTC phones – Incredible on Verizon and EVO on Sprint  came with the HTC Sense flavor of Android, but the EVO will allow turning this off, switching back to vanilla Android.  I will turn it off today and keep an eye for a magic OTA upgrade to Froyo:-)

(Again, this is pure speculation, I have no official or leaked info on the matter whatsoever)

Now, a bit of follow-up on my previous rant regarding coverage.  Phone companies must have decided I live in a corner of the world  – home to PeopleSoft, Commerce One,  Oracle, Workday, Safeway, Kaiser Permanente – that does not deserve good coverage (OK, the surrounding mountains may have to do with that, too) . Getting sick of reading all the coverage map and the surrounding spin, I actually fell victim to the most dishonest map from the carrier with the best coverage, Verizon.  Unlike the others, they don’t indicate signal quality at all.   So now I am the proud (?) owner of both the HTC Incredible (purchased myself) and the HTC EVO (Google gift) and get to compare Sprint vs Verizon in my area – one weaker than the other:-(

And with all that said, my favorite phone is one I can not get my hands on: the Samsung Galaxy S. No writeup or video can do it justice.  You have to hold it in your hands.  I did.  It was hard to let go.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)