Wireless broadband possible? [USA]

I've wanted some Internet service that I can access on the road from different places in the USA, that means that I usually have some level of connectivity, and at least in many metropolitan areas lets me have something near broadband speeds with low latency - without having to go to a public place.

Is there anything like this yet? As far as I can tell, things either aren't much rolled out yet, or they're aimed at particular types of connection rather than someone just with a laptop wanting general Internet usage - ssh, ftp, sip/h323, etc. - and with a globally routable IP, even if it's dynamically-allocated, instead of an RFC1918 address.

So, I haven't been blown away yet by what I've seen on offer so far, based on what I can tell of what cellphone providers, etc. have been doing. Am I missing something? It's sure been hard to tell exactly what's on offer.

Basically, is it possible for people who travel from city to city a lot to get proper broadband Internet connectivity (as if they brought their cable modem along or whatever) without having to go to particular hotel chains or Starbucks or whatever to find themselves on 802.11g behind NAT, or limiting what kind of Internet access they have? (e.g., some packages seem designed with the expectation you just download web pages or whatever.) Is there just not the demand?

If (as I suspect) not, who or what should I be looking at if I want to notice when it appears? Is there any effort in this direction?

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll
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Most of what you want is available very easily(broadband anywhere with wifi or cell cards), the other odd parts, that would kill the security at most hotspots, is very easy to get around if you have a system you can access via VPN, and that system does all the odd stuff.....

For example, I use GoToMyPC to tunnel in from my laptop when traveling, to my home machine, and THAT does all the odd stuff... Seems like doing something like that (a machine at home or work that does all you want, and just vpn into that machine from others, would let you do all the stuff you want)may be something to look into....

Reply to
Peter Pan

"Peter Pan" writes: (snip)

Really, something like a variety of 3G or EDGE or something is rolled out enough to painlessly support things like H.323 from many places?

If need be I could rent a bit of someone's Xen-based server in a colo or something - though then I pay for bandwidth three times over (e.g., from my laptop, into my rented server, back out my server again - or vice-versa) and it adds latency, but it may still be plenty tolerable. Nobody gives out non-RFC1918 addresses then, or is it that they still firewall it heavily and I'd need to tunnel over that?

Thanks.

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

Not sure if I explained that very well.... At home I have dsl/cable/now fios, and run my own machine at home 24/7.... On the road with the laptop, I just tunnel into my computer at home, and when on the road use something like gotomypc that just repeats the screen/keyboard mouse etc from the machine at home on my laptop wherever I happen to be, so the actual work is actually done by the PC at home, I just basically see what the screen would show if I were home and in front of it.... Seems to work pretty well, and I never have to worry about what is blocked or not as I travel around....

From the way you sort of asked, thought maybe something similar would work for you....

Reply to
Peter Pan

"Peter Pan" writes: (snip)

How do you get broadband low-latency connectivity with the laptop without having to go to public places like Starbucks or particular hotel chains or whatever?

(snip)

Unfortunately, if I want real-time videotelephony using H.323 or something, the latency is going to kill me: even without wireless delays, wherever I have the machine I route through, it's often going to take around 0.1s or so for packets to go one-way from where I am to that machine. So, add on the time for them to reach my interlocutor, and then the trip back again, and it could be unusable because we'll keep interrupting each other. I fear that the latency will be too high once having an intermediary machine doubles it.

It's a pity it's not easier to test first!

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

Not exactly sure what you mean, the latency for controlling the desktop via the laptop is sort of immateial, since the stuff actually runs on the desktop, the notebook just controls it.... As for videophony, haven't really played with that, my cell phone also does wifi, so I can use it over wifi at many places, and as a cell phone if not blocked or no hotspots available... If at home, I do video conferencing stuff on the desktop (ie just voice when travelling, video only at home)

Reply to
Peter Pan

(snip)

(snip)

The latency for controlling the desktop is very material if I'm doing videotelephony from the laptop! The audio and video will take more time to get between me and my interlocutor so we'll interrupt each other.

Ah, right - you're using 802.11g or something. I wish it were a bit more ubiquitous! Most places still don't have it. ): At least, as far as I know, you have to go to a Holiday Inn or a McDonald's or a Starbucks or something. I was hoping for something I could access from wherever I stay.

Thanks, anyway.

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

Just wondering where you ever got that idea... I have been travelling for years, almost always have a wifi connction, and never ever not seen a wifi connection near where I am (there are literally THOUSANDS of open ones almost everywhere). Just an aside, got a laptop with a wifi card? Check out

formatting link
(the netstumbler software is free can be downloaded from there, and the forums are pretty good too). If you download/install it and drive around, you would be rather surprised/amazed at how many wifi systems are available.

Reply to
Peter Pan

"Peter Pan" writes: (snip)

Ah - I was hoping for something more cellphone-like where, wherever I am, in whatever motel room I've rented, I probably have broadband connectivity, so long as I'm in a major city. If I drive around suburbia then, sure, I can often find an open access point sooner or later, but I don't want to have to use it from sitting in the car outside or whatever!

You do bring up lots of good points, though. (-: Mmmm, when I pick one of my kids up from school, if I park in the right place I have unsecured connectivity from somewhere. Dunno where, but it's nice.

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

Have you considered another alternative? My laptop has a built in video camera (in the case above the screen) that works whenever I am connected, either by WiFi or cellular data card? (same laptop I use when tunneling in to the server at home with gotomypc).. I use a BT jabra headset (hooked into the sound card), so i can do video and voice conferencing, however, there are very few people that have the video conferencing stuff at their end, so probably 99% of the time I do voice only (have the jabra headset that talks to the base unit, and THAT has the sound plugs.. ie the ones for non blutooth, so I can plug it into the cell phone headset jack directly, or the sound card speaker/mic jacks)....

I am not suggesting an either or connection type, heck I have MULTIPLE ways to connect, not just one, the laptop itself has built in wifi, ethernet, dialup modem, cardbus slot for a data card, and a usb port for tethering a cellphone... What I use depends on what is available at that moment for connecting, and the biggie (for me) was to have all the super high bandwith usage stuff, offloaded elsewhere (in my case a server w high speed connection at home, although I am looking at some hosting places to see if I can get rid of that hassle/expense - yes work pays for it, so why not have someone else do it?)

Laptop something like this

formatting link
) Headset
formatting link
for 2.5 MM jacks
formatting link

Reply to
Peter Pan

"Peter Pan" writes: (snip)

And when going through the computer and tunneling via your desktop in having conversations, you find that the latency isn't so high as to make conversation hard?

A fair few of the people I care about talking to do have video - colleagues with iChat or NetMeeting or whatever, and also keeping in touch with my little kids so they can show me stuff they did at school that day or whatever.

(snip)

Mmm. I guess my problem is that the low-latency broadband stuff I want has to reach all the way to the laptop to make the videotelephony nice enough.

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

Sounds like you are confusing the two.. they are two seperate functions... one is the VPN tunnel to my home pc that I control with gotomypc, and the second is the video conferencing that doesn't use the vpn at all, it's just direct over whatever connection I have at the time.... Two different functions, using two different programs, and doing two different things

That being said, while there is usually a minimnal latency in doing the direct video stuff, I have been in a few (very few luckily) places that use sat for internet (mainly h/motels in the rural way north, or in Alaska that use sat internet connections, instead of terrestrial cable/dsl, now that is a problem, but if in an area with only land connecions, haven't run into a problem with latency)... (also have run into a problem when I have to use dial-up, not a latency thing, but just the way slow speed of dial-up)

Reply to
Peter Pan

"Peter Pan" writes: (snip)

Ah, you manage to get the videochat working okay even behind NAT and whatever filtering they have and whatnot. That's great.

That's good. I think you might be right. I've been running the numbers a bit more and I think I'd be looking at under 0.2s there-and-back latency even via the VPN, which would probably be just about okay. I wonder how much extra latency there is if you go via EDGE or 3G or something.

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

My experience with the verizon 3g (both 1x and evdo rev 0) are about

400 -800ms per hop, IE no real problems like you feared (cept when on the opposite coast and using the cell phone, my ISP is on the west coast, and so is my verizon contract main site, so add a few hundred ms for a few cross country legs, but still very usable..... When needed dialup is a tad slow, but have never noticed talking over each other either even doing that.....

Just an aside, and to give you an example, ever watch the news shows on cable where the reporters are on site on a videophone? The video and audio synch is a bit off (but not much), and the video itself is slowscan (ie watch and things like the background that don't change much, are sort of static, but the reporters face/mouth that moves is updated more often)... Unfortunately, the elcheapo netcams don't do that :( .....

Reply to
Peter Pan

"Peter Pan" writes: (snip)

(snip)

Ah, that's somewhat reassuring. I was worried I was wanting Xohm, a year early! (-:

Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

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