Showing posts with label hotspot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hotspot. Show all posts

With Nest WiFi, internet routers will double as Google Assistant smart speakers

yowasuphomeboy 1:32 PM   , , , , ,  


With the promise of speedy internet for every room, Google's new mesh Wi-Fi system wants to give Google Assistant a bigger footprint in our homes.google-nest-wifi-routers
Available in your choice of three colors, Nest Wifi Points extend the range of Nest Wifi setups -- and they double as Google Assistant smart speakers, too.
Juan Garzon/CNET

Google on Tuesday announced the launch of the Nest Wifi, a refreshed version of the company's popular mesh router system, Google Wifi. Available for pre-order today and set to arrive November 4, the system is comprised of a Nest Wifi Router that plugs into your modem and separate Nest Wifi Points that wirelessly extend the reach of its signal -- and which themselves double as Google Assistant smart speakers.
A two-piece setup with the Nest Wifi Router and one Nest Wifi Point will cost $269. A three-piece setup with the Nest Wifi Router and two Nest Wifi Points will cost $349, and promises to cover homes of up to 3,800 square feet. That's enough coverage for 85% of homes in the US, Google says.

Mesh, meet Google Assistant

Beyond spreading a speedy internet signal throughout your home, the Nest Wifi promises to spread the voice-activated intelligence of Google Assistant around your house, too. That's because each of those Nest Points now doubles as a fully functional Google Assistant smart speaker, complete with always-listening microphones and touch controls on the top of the device.
The goal, Google says, is to get users to keep these things out in the open as opposed to hiding them out of sight, where they won't relay their signals as well. To that end, the new Nest Wifi Points also come in your choice of three colors (snow, sand or mist), and you can buy one on its own for $149. The Nest Router only comes in white, and costs $169 on its own.


google-home-nest-wifi-points-1670Enlarge Image
You'll see an ambient glow from the light ring around the base of the Nest Point whenever it's sending audio to Google's cloud to come up with a response. When the mics are muted, the ring will glow orange.
James Martin/CNET

"We realized that performance for the Wifi Point would double if it was off the floor, not hidden in a closet," said Ben Brown, Google product lead for the Nest Wifi. "Having a great design, having something you actually want to interact with, and having the Assistant on the device makes it actually so it's a much better Wi-Fi system."
You can use a Nest Wifi Point just like you'd use one of Google's other smart speakers, like the Nest Mini, which also made its debut today. You get its attention by saying "OK Google," and then you give it a question or a command, including new Wi-Fi-specific commands like asking for a speed test or to pause Wi-Fi to specific devices or groups of devices. A ring of white light around the base of the device will glow whenever it hears you, and to let you know that it's connecting with Google's cloud to come up with a response. If you want to turn the mics off, just flip the mute switch in the back.
We haven't had a whole lot of time to give it a close listen for ourselves, but Google says that the sound quality in each Nest Point is stronger than you might expect. That's because the need for extra space inside the device for the antennas and for heat dispersion means that there's also plenty of room to push sound around via the downward firing speaker, Brown says.
As for the touch controls on the top face of each marshmallowy device, you can tap the center to pause or resume playback, or tap the sides to turn the volume up and down. Like with the new Nest Mini, a set of indicator lights will glow when your hand draws near to show you where to aim for those volume controls.


Now playing: Nest Wifi puts Google Assistant into your router
 3:25

Faster than before -- but where's Wi-Fi 6?

That new Nest Router is an AC2200 model, which means that it supports current-gen Wi-Fi 5 connections with a maximum combined speed of about 2,200 Mbps across all bands -- up from about 1,200 Mbps last time around. Your actual speed will be a lot lower, since you can only connect to one band at a time, but like Google Wifi before, Nest Wifi will automatically "steer" you from band to band as you move about your house in order to keep your connection as swift and steady as possible.
Another upgrade: Nest Wifi now boasts four antennas for up to four simultaneous wireless connections (4x4). If you're using a client device like a MacBook Pro that can take advantage of those multiple antennas, then you'll be able to combine the speed of those simultaneous streams for a faster Wi-Fi experience.


google-home-nest-wifi-points-1603Enlarge Image
You can spread Nest Wifi Points around your home to triangulate a better internet connection in every room. The previous version of the system is our top-rated mesh setup.
James Martin/CNET

All of the new hardware is also backwards compatible with first-gen Google Wifi setups, so you'll be able to add the new Nest Point extenders with their built-in speakers to your system if you've already bought in. And, if you decide to upgrade to the new Nest Router, your old Google WiFi access points will be able to connect to it and extend its signal, too.
As for the lack of support for next-gen Wi-Fi 6 features, Google suggests that it's still too early for the emerging standard in people's homes.
"It's really only 2022 by which point you're going to have a critical mass of [Wi-Fi 6] devices in the home, at which point Wi-Fi 6 will make sense in the home," said Sanjay Noronha, product lead for Nest Wifi. "And so, our philosophy is how do we make these products useful today?"
Google likely wants to keep its routers affordable, too. For reference, the Wi-Fi 6-ready version of Netgear Orbi, due out later this month, is slated to cost $700 for a two-pack with the router and a single satellite extender. Prices like that are out of reach for too many potential users, Noronha said.
Meanwhile, the newest Wi-Fi 5 version of Netgear Orbi costs $149 for a two-pack, and it supports built-in smart speaker functionality if you add in the $300 Orbi Voice extender with Alexa. Another competitor worth keeping an eye on: Amazon-owned Eero, which just released a new version of its Wi-Fi 5 mesh system as a $249 three-pack. That price is half the cost of the original, and an excellent indication that competition is heating up in the mesh category.
"We recognize that there's going to continue to be an evolution of technology, and we will continue to work on those evolutions," Brown said, "but we also want to make sure that we're delivering the best possible experience for everyone. And I think that we are very confident that this is what [Nest Wifi] represents today. And for the next, you know, five years, honestly."

WBA: Wi-Fi is part of 5G, and more Hotspot 2.0 is on the way

yowasuphomeboy 1:57 PM   , , , , , ,  


To hear the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) tell it, there’s no doubt about it: Wi-Fi will be a key part of 5G in the years to come.

“The way I see it is things are converging and they’re converging very rapidly,” said JR Wilson, WBA chairman and vice president of Partnerships & Alliances at AT&T.
802.11ax is going to be part of the 5G standards, and although a couple years ago Wilson might have had to convince his colleagues about Wi-Fi being part of 5G, “I don’t think I’ve got to convince anyone anymore,” he said.

In fact, it’s not going to matter whether it’s Wi-Fi, cellular, LTE-M or any other access technology. “It’s really going to be just about how do you deliver an overall experience and that experience being very seamless and how all those different air interfaces operate together and how you go about integrating them,” he told FierceWirelessTech.
Of course, that means the WBA is working closely with 3GPP, IEEE, the Wi-Fi Alliance, GSMA and all those bodies, including the Small Cell Forum. In the next couple of years, given the accelerated rate of convergence, “I think we’re going to have to work even closer with them,” he said.

The WBA has a lot on its plate: In the next few years, it’s going to continue working on improving interoperability, provisioning and authentication, all the while being mindful of security and privacy issues. Once Wi-Fi is integrated into the 5G network and it all looks like one system to the customer, then it will be about managing the traffic across the converged ecosystem.

The vast majority of AT&T’s Wi-Fi network is Hotspot 2.0, and the good news is that a lot of other companies are realizing the benefit of having Hotspot 2.0 in their network. Hotspot 2.0 is designed to make Wi-Fi roaming as seamless and simple as cellular roaming, and the more companies that deploy it, the better for the whole Wi-Fi ecosystem.
Given the price compression in the wireless industry and the unlicensed nature of Wi-Fi, the business case for Hotspot 2.0 is only going to get stronger, Wilson predicts. That’s because unlicensed technologies can be deployed at a lower cost while maintaining the quality of service, and the companies with the best cost structures are going to prevail.
“You’re going to see a lot more companies start to utilize Hotspot 2.0 as part of their overall network strategy,” he said.




Naturally, AT&T is interested in boosting its Wi-Fi footprint in more venues. Last year, Boingo announced that an unnamed “tier 1 carrier” had joined Sprint as a Boingo Wi-Fi offloading customer. Sources told FierceWireless at the time that the second carrier was most likely AT&T.

Wilson said that AT&T and Boingo have been working together for years, and the two companies have a good relationship. However, he declined to comment on any specifics.
As the exclusive carrier in the early days of the iPhone, AT&T’s traffic unexpectedly skyrocketed, taxing the cellular network and frustrating customers. That’s when it embraced Wi-Fi in a big way. Putting more traffic onto Wi-Fi led to more usage on both the Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

AT&T has seen accelerated video demand across its entire business. Of course, everyone naturally thinks about consumer-based video services, and that segment is certainly growing at a rapid pace.

“Similarly, we are seeing more and more video-driven applications in the enterprise sector,” he said. AT&T saw that play out in the fleet space. A couple years ago, it was largely about tracking vehicles and trucks around the globe. There has been a progression of IoT based services; now, the fleet business is using video in new ways, putting cameras in the cab or monitoring high-value cargo. That’s driving tremendous usage for both cellular and Wi-Fi, Wilson said, with video being used in ways nobody thought much about even a couple years ago.

Wi-Fi Could Soon Get 100 Times Faster Than Today

yowasuphomeboy 10:21 AM   , , , , , ,  
You might be able to download the latest episode of Game of Thrones in mere seconds if recent scientific research proves correct. Scientists have discovered the means to send complex data using high-frequency radiation that may lead to ultra fast Wi-Fi speeds.

Terahertz replaces traditional microwaves

The project researchers successfully sent video signals at speeds of 50 gigabytes per second using terahertz, rather than the traditional microwaves. Often wireless networks can only operate at a top speed of 500 megabytes a second. If the success of the experimentation continues, it could lead to high-speed streaming on the go.

Brown University leads international team of researchers

Daniel Mittleman, a professor in Brown University‘s School of Engineering, in Providence, US, who worked on the project explains, “We showed that we can transmit separate data streams on terahertz waves at very high speeds and with very low error rates.” He continues, “This is the first time anybody has characterized a terahertz multiplexing system using actual data, and our results show that our approach could be viable in future terahertz wireless networks.”

Demand for high-speed networks pushing research

Demand for high-speed voice and data networks are driving the research. While microwaves are doing a fine job, the increased demand is motivating researchers to look for new answers. The terahertz waves have higher frequencies which allow them to carry more data than the lower frequency microwaves. The research is, in part, funded by the U.S. Army Research Office.
The successful test saw two real-time high-definition television broadcasts encoded onto terahertz waves of two different frequencies then beamed together. The resulting transmission moved the data at 70 gigabits per second, an outstanding speed compared to most accessible Wi-Fi speeds. The transmission was completed with no errors or breakages. In the next test, transmission speed was increased to 50 gigabits per second. There were some reported errors, but non that stood out amongst expected and accepted errors in regular data transfer. The process of sending multiple signals through one channel is called multiplexing. It’s the same basic idea that allows many users to access open Wi-Fi network.  

Outdoor testing approved for terahertz frequencies.

An international team worked on the project, guided by Daniel Mittleman. His team have been working on this technology for some time. In 2015 the lab produced a paper that described the waveguide concept. The research described the potential uses of terahertz. In the latest research Mittleman says the research has taken the critical step ‘testing the device with real data.’
In the next steps for the team which includes, researchers from the Institut d’Electronique de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie, in Lille, France, will test terahertz function in different types of environments. The Mittleman lab was recently awarded a license from the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) to perform outdoor tests at terahertz frequencies.
While the research could lead to ultra fast Wi-Fi in the future there are many hurdles to overcome before we can see consumer access to these speeds.

Everything you need to know about wireless mesh networks

yowasuphomeboy 1:15 PM   , , , , , , ,  
You would be forgiven for thinking that wireless mesh networking is just another marketing bullet point for new Wi-Fi routers, a phrase coined to drive up prices without delivering benefits. But we can avoid being cynical for once: mesh technology does deliver a significant benefit over the regular old Wi-Fi routers we’ve bought in years past and that remain on the market.
Mesh networks are resilient, self-configuring, and efficient. You don’t need to mess with them after often minimal work required to set them up, and they provide arguably the best and highest throughput you can achieve in your home. These advantages have led to several startups and existing companies introducing mesh systems contending for the home and small business Wi-Fi networking dollar.
Mesh networks solve a particular problem: covering a relatively large area, more than about 1,000 square feet on a single floor, or a multi-floor dwelling or office, especially where there’s no ethernet already present to allow easier wired connections of non-mesh Wi-Fi routers and wireless access points. All the current mesh ecosystems also offer simplicity. You might pull out great tufts of hair working with the web-based administration control panels on even the most popular conventional Wi-Fi routers.
house with traditional routerLuma Home, Inc.
A conventional wireless router delivers limited coverage if you can't hardwire additional Wi-Fi access points to it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

What mesh means

The concept of mesh networks first appeared in the 1980s in military experiments, and it became commercially available in the 1990s. But hardware, radio, and spectrum requirements; cost; and availability made it truly practical for consumer-scale gear only in the last couple of years. That’s why we’re seeing so many systems hit the market all at once.
Mesh networking treats each base station as a node that exchanges information continuously about network conditions with all adjacent nodes across the entire set. This allows nodes that aren’t sending and receiving data to each other to still know all about each other. This knowledge might reside in a cloud-based backend or in firmware on each router.
Mesh networks don’t retransmit all the data passing through among a set of base stations. The systems on the market dynamically adjust radio attributes and channels to create the least possible interference and the greatest possible coverage area, which results in a high level of throughput—far higher than anything that’s possible with WDS (Wireless Distribution System) and similar broadcast-style systems.
luma mesh networkLuma Home, Inc.
Mesh network routers, such as Luma, connect multiple wireless nodes to blanket your home with Wi-Fi.
The principle behind all wireless networking is “how do I transmit this number of bits in the smallest number of microseconds and get off and let someone else use it?” explains Matthew Gast, former chair of the IEEE 802.11 committee that sets specs used by Wi-Fi. Mesh networks manage this better than WDS.
In some cases, Gast notes, a mesh node might send a packet of data to just one other node; in others, a weak signal and other factors might route the packet through other nodes to reach the destination base station to which the destination wireless device is connected.
Some mesh routers have single-band-at-a-time radios, and are meant more as smart extensions. But it’s more common that the nodes have radios for two or even three frequency bands, like the latest Eero. This lets mesh dedicate bands to intra-node data, switching channels to reduce congestion, or mixing client data and “backhaul” data on the same channel.
netgear nighthawk x10
Netgear
High-end conventional routers offer high-performance features not currently found in mesh Wi-Fi systems. The Netgear Nighthawk X10, for instance, has a 10Gbps ethernet port for network storage.
The ultimate goal is to make sure as much throughput remains reserved for actual productive traffic, such as streaming 4K video from one end of a house to the other or making fast connections to internet multiplayer games, relative to that consumed by moving data around the network.
If a node is powered down or crashes—your cat gets a little too interested and knocks one off a shelf—the network doesn’t go down, too. As long as every node can continue to communicate with at least one other node, you still have a fully functioning network.
You typically rely on a smartphone to help set up the first node and network parameters and add additional nodes to an existing network. Because you don’t have to plan where mesh nodes go, mesh systems automatically reconfigure as you add nodes. Most of the systems available offer help in figuring out where to locate units, some of them using indicators on the nodes themselves while others require smartphone software. “There is an immense amount of engineering effort to make something very simple,” says Gast.

Is it smart to invest in mesh?

The price you pay for this better efficiency? Proprietary protocols. While Wi-Fi remains standardized, and extremely and reliably compatible among equipment from different makers, no two mesh systems on the market work with each other. An early mesh protocol, 802.11h, wound up being not just insufficient to the task, but entirely ignored by companies as they pursued better results and competitive advantages. It’s also unlikely that any time in the next few years a compatible industry standard would arise and get uptake, given no such standard is currently working its way through the pipeline.
router size comparison
Michael Brown
Every major router manufacturer, and a number of startups, have jumped on the mesh network bandwagon.
You have three reasons to want compatibility: a way to acquire cheaper equipment if one manufacturer charges more than you want to pay for additional nodes; as an escape route if a company or product line goes under; or as a way to upgrade a network gradually to incorporate new standards. That’s not possible with mesh.
Being locked in to one manufacturer increases risk, because several companies making mesh gear—Eero, Luma, and Securifi—are startups, and not all startups succeed. More established firms, such as D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, and TP-Link, make mesh networking hardware, but if those product lines don’t produce profit, they won’t continue to make units forever.
All of this could affect you in six ways:
  • Inability to get technical support when something goes wrong.
  • Lack of warranty coverage for failed hardware. (Companies in bankruptcy, however, might be required to fund some amount of repair and replacement.)
  • No way to purchase new units to expand your network.
  • Smartphone apps, which some systems rely upon exclusively, stop receiving updates and stop working.
  • Cloud-based elements for configuration and management get turned off, rendering the nodes inoperable or locked into the last configuration. A Wi-Fi camera memory card maker at one point intended to disable configuration updates to its cloud-linked product. This can be an issue even with active products: Google accidentally reset its non-mesh OnHub and mesh Google Wifi routers in February because of a cloud-based account login issue.
  • Critical security flaws are discovered, but can’t be updated. While it seems unlikely that a mesh device that didn’t sell enough to be a success would be exploited, most standalone hardware of any kind—from DVRs to internet-connected cameras—use a variation of Linux and one of a handful of widely used chipsets.
Balanced against this is the lifecycle of Wi-Fi routers. In my nearly 20 years of buying and testing wireless networking hardware, I’ve found that it either fails in three to five years or needs an upgrade in that time to take advantage of newer networking features. Consider the price tag on a mesh system your rental price across that period, and think about whether the value of $70 to $150 a year, depending on the system and number of nodes, delivers enough utility. If you’re lucky, it will last much longer.
Netgear Orbi and satellite
Michael Brown
The Netgear Orbi RBK50 is our current top pick in Wi-Fi routers (even if it isn't a true mesh router).

Weaving a finer mesh

The future of mesh isn’t more and more and more nodes. Rather, it’s nodes that have more and different kinds of radios and other features built in. Already, some mesh nodes have Bluetooth for configuration and personal area networking control and up to three Wi-Fi radios supporting the full 802.11a/b/g/n/ac range.
Future nodes could add more radios or slice-and-dice an 802.11ac Wave 2 feature that allows beamforming and device targeting to further separate intra-node traffic from device-to-device traffic. And they could throw in 802.11ad/Wi-Gig for superfast ultra-high-definition streaming or ZigBee and other smart-home standards.
But the baseline set already today is for fast, efficient, and simple. Newer nodes can put more icing on the cake.
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