Here's looking at you next generation WiFi

Things are hotting up in the South African broadband landscape. The list of commercially available technologies is growing rapidly and truly getting to grips with the intricacies of each technology is something most consumers are unlikely to be interested in. Quality of service is the bottom line. Can I get the service that I need at the right price? That is the question. It's also a question we are not going to answer, in the context hotspots powered by next generation WiFi, until the very end of this post.

WiFi is effectively a set of wireless LAN (local area network) standards called the IEEE 802.11 standards. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the body that does the standardisation and it is generally a lengthy process. The current WiFi standards are 802.11b and 802.11g with the latter offering higher data rates. The next generation of WiFi is 802.11n and it is not officially a standard yet not only due to standardisation being time consuming but also for various other reasons [1][2]. Even though it is not a standard yet, equipment manufacturers have begun making routers [3] that support the draft standard. The logo shown at the top of this post is what one should look for when buying such a router and the inclusion of the n with the word draft next to it means that the equipment has been certified, by the Wi-Fi Alliance, to be a router that is Wi-Fi Certified 802.11n draft 2.0 (click to get the official take on the meaning of the logo and term). The 802.11n standard is expected to be ratified by the IEEE by the end of this year.

Having touched on the status of 802.11n, lets jump straight to the key differentiators of 802.11n, what can it do for us all? The key advantages are:

• Improved range - areas in a venue that would previously have had no or poor signal quality should have improved coverage when a certified 802.11n router is used as a drop in replacement for a 802.11b/g router
  
• Improved performance - 802.11n offers higher data rates and speeds ranging from 100 - 200Mbps have been reported [3]. Multimedia applications, such as streaming video, require more bandwidth or "fatter pipes" and 802.11n delivers on these requirements. They not only require more bandwidth but also performance characteristics such as lower latency and 802.11n has the ability to deliver on this requirement.
  

Having mentioned that 802.11n offers improved range and performance, the next questions that come to mind are how much improvement is on offer and also, for the technically inclined, how is the improvement achieved?

To answer the first, with regards to range, a ball park figure is that 802.11n offers twice the range as 802.11b/g in the same environment. It is not possible to give a precise figure as every room or building is different, the material used in construction and other environmental aspects will affect the exact increase in range. The frequency used also effects the range but more on that later. From RedButton's perspective this is good news as it would make delivering on our commitment to providing signal coverage in all relevant areas of venues that much easier. With regards to bandwidth, one can expect roughly five times the throughput. This is certainly attractive when it comes to locally hosted services and activities such as streaming video on the local area network. At RedButton however we currently isolate clients from one another for security reasons and do not host any video services on our local area networks. That being said we still welcome the increase in throughput as at certain locations, where we have as many as 3 concurrent 4Mbps ADSL lines powering a single hotspot, clients would see improved performance when it comes to Internet access.

With regards to the technicalities behind 802.11n, we'll just touch on the key points, for in-dept , academic coverage, O'REILLY's 802.11 Wireless Networks is a good source. The key technical enhancements of 802.11n are:

1. MIMO technology: This stands for "Multiple-in, Multiple-out" and involves the use of multiple antennas to send and receive more than one signal simultaneously.
   
2. Effective use of multiple frequency bands: With 802.11b/g the 2.4GHz frequency band was used exclusively, with 802.11n both the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz frequency band are used [4]. The increases in performance offered by 802.11n have largely been seen when using the 5GHz band [3], not the 2.4GHz band.

We are quite excited about 802.11n and there is no doubt that we'll use it when most new laptops start shipping with 802.11n cards built in. This is only likely to happen once the 802.11n standard has been ratified by the IEEE and so only in the first or second quarter of 2009.

Can I get the service that I need at the right price?

Since the next generation WiFi, 802.11n, is only likely to start being widely adopted in 2009, the question is will I be able to get the service I need at the right price? When it comes to the service one needs, each person has different requirements but its a safe bet that each hotspot client wants good signal strength in all areas of a venue and an Internet that is as fast as possible. First of all, a 802.11n hotspot would still need to be powered by an Internet backbone (whether its WiMax, ADSL, satellite, iBurst, Neotel CDMA, metro Ethernet, the list goes on) and it's difficult to predict what prices will be like in 2009, we do know that they will drop. That being said with 802.11n from a hotspot operators perspective the capital expenditure at each hotspot is likely to be less as fewer routers would be required to provide the same coverage as with 802.11b/g routers. So in conclusion, we predict that you will be getting vastly superior service levels at significantly lower rates in 2009 and the deployment of 802.11n is likely to be a factor in price reductions.

Happy New Year

To all our customers, suppliers and friends, wishing you happy and prosperous 2008!

Thank-you for your support

At RedButton we are looking forward to a year in which we bring even more value to our customers, not only in terms of the quality and convenience of our offering, but also in terms of an exciting new product line. Thank-you for your support in 2007 and we are looking forward to serving you in 2008.

New trends?

When it comes to Wi-Fi in 2008, we'll no doubt continue to see it becoming more ubiquitous. For example have you heard of the Toyota A-Bat? It's a hybrid concept vehicle that appears to sport an internal Wi-Fi access point, all you'd need is some backbone technology (e.g. 3G, WiMAX) to turn your A-Bat into your private local area network or mobile hotspot. Lets see if 2008 will see such vehicles going into production.

Special mention

In particular we would like to extend our best wishes to all WAPA members with regards to the license conversion process at ICASA. WAPA is an a set of backbone (technically called wide area network) wireless Internet service providers who have for many years provided Internet services to end-users and service providers such as ourselves. In a nutshell, 2008 should be the year in which most WAPA members will know whether they will be licensed to provide backbone Internet connections.

To delve into further detail, WAPA members, who all have VANS licenses, have been informed that their licenses are to be converted to a type of license (ECS) that is not sufficient for providing backbone Internet connections, an ECNS license will be required. ICASA, the communications authority of South Africa, recently announced that it

has decided that VANs will in the first instance be converted to ECS and that a competitive process will be followed in respect of granting VANS the right to acquire ECNS as per the Ministerial Directive. An Invitation To Apply (ITA) to this effect will be issued in January 2008. Consequently a separate matrix for VANS (ECNS applications) will be published once interested parties have responded to the ITA and submissions have been evaluated. The Authority will hold public hearings in March 2008 in order to fast track this process

View From The Top - Marking 2 Years of Service at The Tudor Hotel

The Tudor Hotel, primely situated in Cape Town's historic Greenmarket Square, is the oldest hotel in Cape Town and probably one of the oldest in South Africa. It is also RedButton's first client with the initial installation having taken place two years ago in December 2005.

The photo below is a great view of Greenmarket square, taken from the top of The Tudor Hotel. Credit for the photo goes to Neal Tosefsky, outbound logistics manager at RedButton.



As an aside, with the hotel having been built in 1870, that means we've had it covered for 2 years of its 137 year life span. Since we're on history and since 2 out of 137 doesn't sound that great let's try to put the 2 year span in context.

The Internet became commercially available in South Africa in the mid 90s with the Internet Service Providers' Association being formed in 1996. Although WiFi was born in 1991, broadband only truly became available in South Africa in early 2003 with Telkom releasing ADSL. So effectively we've had the Tudor Hotel covered for 2 out of 5 years possible years, a statement that tells a different story.

To this day the Tudor continues to enjoy the high service levels, competent customer support and ongoing system improvements that have established RedButton as the leading hotspot service provider in South Africa.