This Singapore public bus service is now offering WiFi-On-The-Go

Yon Heong Tung

e27

April 12, 2016

ricky l6 seconds ago

Look like picking Wi-Fi for Wireless access which is manifested by Wireless@SG has been the right choice.

At that time, Wi-Fi is a short-range wireless broadband access - and not many is confident that wi-fi will last.

More than 10 years have passed - and it turn out that Wi-Fi has been the winner --- upsurging GPRS, bluetooth, 2.5G, 3G and 4G as well as Wi-Max.

So the nation-wide national infrastructure investment on wi-fi is a right choice. And the best part is, it is backward compatible to a/b/g/n/ac --- as different radio transmitter and receiver can coexist in the same APs.

Now wi-fi are being used by tablets, smartphones, notebook and other mobile devices - for internet broadband access, ecommerce transaction and mobile apps.

Wi-fi is a killer apps (or killer infra).

ricky l6 seconds ago

Another 2 right technology choices that were made 10 years ago were :-

(1) Fiber to the home

(2) Gigabit Ethernet, Long range ethernet.

The heavy investment in these 2 technologies nationwide - have bear important result and outcome - as the underlying network technologies to drive the Smart Nation.

ricky l6 seconds ago

Fiber to the home (FTTH) and Gigabit Ethernet and Long-Range Ethernet --- have drive :-

(1) MPLS network in WAN connectivity - that is driving organisation, business and enterprise network connection - that are used to transport data, voice, video and images supported by FTTH.

(2) Business enterprise also used Gigabit ethernet for server connection and end-device connectivity.

With multi-million and billion of dollars invested in the above fixed line, wireless and ethernet technology - no money are wasted - and in fact put the Nation in good stead into a smart nation.

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  Pictyesterday

  It a no brainer to move in that direction. If spore has been really ahead, we would be losing out to many other countries like Korea, etc in infrastructure.
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  kohyesterday

  4G
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• ricky l37 seconds ago
  The statement "It a no brainer to move in that direction." is not a correct statement because you are seeing the outcome now and did not see the technology trend crossroad a decade ago.

  Decision on Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet (GE)

  - at that time, the telcos are using frame relay and need upgrading into a bandwidth-intensive and yet scalable technology to take cater for data transmission in addition to voice transmission (in which frame relay is designed to carry).

  Ethernet and GE is never in the race. ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is the technology that all telcos and product providers are actively producing. The reason - ATM is circuit switching oriented (PVC, SVC), is deterministic and QoS is the ATM forte. QoS such as CBR, VBR, ABR and best-effort are useful to prioritise traffic for data and voice.

  SDH or SONET is another underlying technology as backbone transmission network for the telco as it has wrap-around redundancy.

  DWDM, GPON is the 3rd wave telco network technology that are used in fibre connectivity in which a physical fibre can be provision up to 16 lamda or more using different wavelength.

  All these technologies can used to run not only data and voice but also image, pictures, video, video conferening using TCP/IP network.

  Most strong telco product providers are building network products using the above technology. Even for enterprise network, they are customising ATM as the LAN technology using LANE Emulation to work with LAN end devices - using LES, LECS and BUS - so as to achieve end-to-end telco WAN and LAN.

  No telco providers are treating Ethernet and 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet as a likely technology that will be deployed.

  Cisco is the main Ethernet and Fast Ethernet "pusher" that shoot for it as LAN technology.

  Tell me at that time, who will be in the right mind or has the vision to push for Ethernet for deployment - when such a strong headwind for ATM?

  Given that Ethernet is CSMA/CD is subjected to collision and a shared bandwidth unlike dedicated circuit and Qos forte like ATM?

  So it is not true that choosing Ethernet is not a no brainer.

ricky l7 seconds ago

Decision on Wireless LAN

---- Wi Fi at that time is using the ISM (Industry, Scientific and Medicine) operating under a public open shared 2.4 Ghz band of 11 Mbps under IEEE802.11b using DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) modulation.

No telco will give a serious thought of using a "shared public radio frequency" wireless technology to provide to consumers. Also DSSS modulation cannot scale due to radio frequency interference on the shared frequency.

At that time, all telcos are using 2.5G - GRPS to wirelessly transmit voice and very limited data. To take a quantum step to transmit voice and data - the Telcos are exploring 3G (that can run both data, voice and even limited video) where local telcos need to apply for licence to acquire the radio frequency to operate - though 3G bandwidth is smaller as compare to Wi-Fi.

Telcos are charging for the usage of 3G and they are not looking at Wi-Fi - because Wi-Fi is free. Also Wi-Fi is less secured as at that time, they are using static WEP key that can be easily cracked by sniffing the IV (Initialising Vector) and break the key - and hacked into the Wi-Fi network via the compromise Access Points (AP).

So it is not true that the decision to go for Wi-Fi and make such heavy investment into the finally evolved Wireless@SG is a no brainer.

At that time, telcos are looking at 3G and WiMax and FSO (Free Space Optics).

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However the decision to go for Wi-Fi is correct because :-

With higher bandwidth or Wi-Fi such as the IEEE802.11a/g - and now "n" and "ac" - that uses OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) and now MIMO (Multiple Input and Output antennae) - higher bandwidth from 54Mbps onwards that can be shared by more users and can run voice, video, data and images ---- causing less performance problem.

Wi-Fi security has improved with the used of TKIP, IEEE802.11i WPA, IEEE802.1x EAP-PEAP, TLS, AES, 3DES encryption with strong encryption key, web captive portal etc.

And the most important things, many end-devices recognise the value of Wi-Fi and has made Wi-Fi adapter their main wireless standard for connection ---- as wi-max and 3G adapter are not widely used.

Now smartphone, wearables, tablets, notebook, LAN connection are mostly using Wi-Fi for "free access" - through 3G and 4G paid network and broadband network.

So decision to go for Wi-Fi is a very bold move ---- when so many APs are deployed nation-wide through Wireless@SG in such heavy investment.

ricky l7 seconds ago

At that time, the telcos only have Category 3 cable to run voice on frame relay network.

Category 3 cable cannot run data, video, images very well - can only run voice very well.

To support broadband network that run not only voice - but also data, video, images ----- there is a need to revamp all the underground cables - digging up roads and drain.

Fiber is the future-proof cables - and the need to lay this new cables cost billions of dollars and is extremely disruptive to roads and drains nation-wide.

Other less disruptive technology such as using FSO (free space optics - wireless without the need to dig), Wi-Max IEEE802.16 are explored - hopefully there is no need to dig.

The decision to go for fiber is a right move as fiber can transport huge bandwidth and is technology independent.

(1) So it is not a no-brainer to go for fiber ---- because digging up the roads is madness and extremely disruptive.

(2) So it is not a no-brainer to go for ethernet, long-range ethernet - because majority of the telcos write off ethernet at that time and shoot for ATM --- until one vendor Cisco - make ethernet with their routers and network switches (using MPLS tag switching that look like ATM virtual circuit, using QoS, traffic shaping, rate limit, 802.1p, diffserv etc like ATM Qos, RSVP etc) as well as ATM die by its own weight - as it so complex to build up the skillsets of engineers to maintain ATM.

(3) And definitely it is not a no-brainer to go for wi-fi - because even the suggestion of wifi make some people laugh so loudly at that time.