[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [ProgSoc] Mobile Wireless. (fwd)



 I know this has been done .. but I've been away for a month and
 didn't get a chance to write something off-topic about this earlier.

On Tue August 10 2004 11:59 pm, Marcus Schappi wrote:
 ] I am doing this basic concept for my Capstone Business Planning Project
 ] where my main marks will be given for the Business Plan / Business Model.

 This is the curious bit .. what kind of demand is there thought to be for
 net access on public transport, and what would people be prepared to
 pay for this, and how does this compare to existing infrastructure and
 projected end-users costs of same into a similar time-frame?

 ] Basically entertainment for commuters, and the ability for the commuters
 ] to do work if they so feel like it.

 Argh .. I think Australia is a close second in the race to perform unpaid
 overtime.

 ] The system must be able to stream multimedia (video etc) to handhelds
 ] (wifi), mobile phones (bluetooth?) and laptops.

 I thought there were some serious problems with lots of devices talking
 bluetooth in the same area?  What you might have is a problem for people
 who want to use bluetooth where it's available and drop back to 802.11
 elsewhere .. but not have to maintain two separate accounts with this ISP.

 But this is probably the least of your billing problems.

 ] At this point in time, if I were to design the system I would put
 ] a little black box on every train/bus/ferry, that would contrain an
 ] iBurst Card (www.iburst.com.au) and a Wifi card. The little black box
 ] would be powered by a 12 Volt Powersupply and contain a hard disk
 ] so that webpages could be cached (for the point of saving bandwidth).

 Why are you saving bandwidth from the AP to the client device?  That
 bandwidth is both free and hugely limited by the end devices .. you'd be
 better setting up an almighty cache at the bottleneck further into your
 network.  Avoiding any moving parts in the AP's drastically improves
 your MTBF as well as reducing power consumption etc.

 ] Some cut down form of linux would act as a firewall/proxy.

 Where?  Who are you firewalling, and why?

 ] What version of Linux/Unix would one use for such a project?

 There's lots of embedded linux projects out there, but you'd definitely
 go for something with a stable and supported base that you'd be confident
 of upgrading remotely.  This rules out lots of platforms.

 ] How would one secure a wireless network such as this ?

 Much like my earlier question .. who are you trying to secure things
 against, and what level of security are you wanting to offer your clients?

 If you're talking infrastructure, then the way to make things secure is to
 offer bugger all in the way of services.

 ] Because bandwidth is at a premium, I'd like too create a solution that
 ] can somewhat predict what pages will be requested in the immediate future.
 ] (Perhaps even if there could be a way of grabbing a select few sites
 ] that are automatically compressed and packaged at the HQ/Datacentre
 ] and sent out to each of the little blackboxes and decompressed into
 ] the cache.

 Predictive fetching?  Neat.  But why .. ?  What kind of pipe into the net
 are you expecting to use, and what size are the connections out to the
 buses, trains, ferries, etc?

 I'd expect you'd be better able to predict pages in the near future - say
 24 hours from now - than the immediate future.  People's habits are fairly
 predictable, but what's going to catch someone's eye on the net right now
 is trickier to guess.

 ] The ability to deliver television/radio to commuters is an important
 ] part of the system, as most commuters who travel long distances daily
 ] see very little television.

 Ahh yes, and we can't have people reading books or talking or anything
 subversive like that.

 I thought surveys were showing that more and more people were putting
 the net above the TV on their list of 'can't live withouts'.  I doubt this
 trend will reverse.   Certainly, technology-wise, the net will kill most TV.

 You're also going to have re-broadcast issues (as they do now) for things
 like sporting events in Wollongong that they can't show to Sydney audiences
 (and vice versa) to cope with .. particularly for people on the train from
 Sydney to, say, Wollongong.

 Jedd.


-
You are subscribed to the progsoc mailing list. To unsubscribe, send a
message containing "unsubscribe" to progsoc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you are having trouble, ask owner-progsoc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for help.