Google this week introduced its first WiFi router and my initial reaction was “Why?” WiFi access points and home routers tend to be low-margin commodity products that could only hurt financial results for the search giant. What made it worth the pain on Wall Street, then, for Google to introduce this gizmo? And then I realized it is Google’s best hope to save the Internet… and itself.
WiFi is everywhere and it generally sucks. WiFi has become the go-to method of networking homes and even businesses. I remember product introductions in New York back in the 80s and 90s when we were told over and over again that it cost $100 per foot to pull Ethernet cable in Manhattan (a price that was always blamed on the local electricians union by-the-way). Well the lesson must have stuck, because more and more Ethernet is for data centers and WiFi is for everything else. Even my old friend, Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe, has started claiming that WiFi is Ethernet, which it isn’t and he knows that.
The contrast between these technologies is stark. My three sons have been developing a computer hardware product they’ll be throwing up on KickStarter in a couple weeks and the lab they’ve built next to the foosball and pool tables in their man-cave (that’s what they call it) is entirely hard-wired with gig-Ethernet and what a joy that is. Lights flash and things happen exactly the way they are supposed to while the rest of the house is wireless and in constant networking turmoil. We have an 802.11ac network with no parts more than a year old yet still the access point in Mama’s room (one of five) loses its mind at least twice a day.
WiFi is a miracle and it’s not going away, but what we have today is generally a hodgepodge of technologies and vendors that kinda-sorta work together some of the time. Every WiFi vendor claims interoperability while at the same time making the point that if you buy your equipment only from them and stick with the latest version (replace everything annually) it will work a lot better. A single old 802.11b device, we’re told, can bring much of the network back to 1999 speeds.
The problem with WiFi, as I understand it, is that 802.11 is a LAN technology developed with little thought to its WAN implications. How many of us run local servers? So nearly everything on a WiFi network has to do with reaching-out 30 or so hops across a TCP/IP network that wasn’t even a factor when WiFi was being developed 20 years ago by electrical (rather than networking) engineers. As a result we have queuing and timing and buffering problems in WiFi that make bufferbloat look simple. (Even more here). These problems exist right down to the chip level where the people who actually know how to fix them generally have no access.
So what does this have to do with Google introducing a WiFi router? Well Google’s continued success relies on the Internet actually functioning all the way out to that mobile device or (shudder) xBox in your son’s bedroom. xBox, if you didn’t know, is a particularly heinous networking device, especially over WiFi. If WiFi is the future of the Internet then Google’s future success is dependent on making WiFi work better, hence the router, which I expect will become something of a reference design for other vendors to copy.
Google’s $199 OnHub, which you can order now, does a lot of things right. It supports every WiFi variant, has 13 antennas, and switches seamlessly between 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz operation on constantly varying channels trying to get the best signal to the devices that need it. This is all from the wireless LAN best-practices playbook and so of course Google says that an all-Google WiFi network is the best way to go. I’m guessing my ramshackle home network will require three of the things and wonder how all that shaking and baking will function on a multi-access point environment?
But those 13 antennas and the 1.4-GHz Qualcomm processor don’t inherently address the problems WiFi brings to the Internet. That’s where OnHub is potentially even more radical, because it’s the first such device that’s likely to be managed by the vendor and not by you. One huge problem with WiFi is the firmware in these devices is difficult to upgrade and impossible to upgrade remotely, but OnHub promises to change that with a continuous stream of tweaks to its GenToo brain straight from the Googleplex. If we forget privacy considerations for a moment this is a brilliant approach because it makes each WiFi network a dynamic thing capable of being optimized beyond anything imagined to date.
I know, having looked deep into the soul of my own WiFi network, that there’s the potential to increase real networking performance (measured not just by bitrate, but by a combination of bitrate and latency) by at least 10X, but to make that happen requires constant tuning and updates.
Whether Google is the best outfit to trust with that tuning and those updates is another story.
Because Google doesn’t already have enough of their users data, make sure they have it ALL.
I find myself trusting Google way less than I ever trusted Microsoft with my personal information. There is now an article in Politico that shows how Google can influence and maybe even decide the 2016 presidential election.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-could-rig-the-2016-election-121548.html?ml=po#.Vdc5VtDD_5o
I don’t think there’s a need to compare one company over the other (MS vs. Google) as far as trust goes. You can distrust them both more or less and still be alarmed. Their actions are both together onerous. Essentially if they are bad (at whatever level of badness there is) they are bad enough. The problem with this device, and all those nasty things wrong with Windows 10, are that people don’t know what they don’t know. It isn’t ignorance either, it’s that these things are being hidden from them. These two companies (and others) tend to follow the same logic that Rep. Michael Rogers used when he said that people don’t have standing to sue the government — you weren’t harmed if you don’t know you were harmed. For instance, under Windows 10 during the settings part of the upgrade it obfuscates the “custom settings” in tiny print far off to the left of the eye’s focus — the eyes are drawn to the “next” and “back” in the area of “express settings”. Let’s not forget the strange lingo used that most non-tech people are wholly unfamiliar with. Then once Windows 10 is upgraded attempts to tweak the settings (to turn off most of the privacy violating features) are frustrating and often missed. Since there are so many settings in so many places it is hard to remember which settings are where or that they are there to begin with.
Google does a semi-decent job of at least giving you a “Settings” program on Android providing virtually all the privacy settings in one place, and they give you a web based control panel so that you can see precisely what they have collected about you that you can use to control things. That doesn’t change the fact that this device will give Google unprecedented access (to possibly abuse) for discovering what is on your network. That is bad.
Mr. Cringely doesn’t appear to understand many issues with WiFi. He understands them from his perspective. I respect the man and recognize and honor his place in computing history. I just think he doesn’t quite understand the intricacies of setting up a solid WiFi system. For instance, it is obvious that we need WiFi throughout our homes for one reason or another, including having it in rooms that have wired Ethernet. His mama’s room should always have a wired connection and if WiFi is still needed he can simply buy a cheap 802.11 AC router and set it up as an access point instead of using it as a router, where he’d get the true benefits of the power of WiFi configuration. He shouldn’t be pushing us to buy $200 routers (I think he said he needed 3 in his house to cover things) where a $40 router with DHCP turned off will work sufficiently.
Don’t forget the Windows 10 Update notification on any previous Windows version…
Its literally a virus. You actually have to boot in safe mode and modify the registry so it doesn’t copy itself back into stack.
Also, in Windows 10, if IE crashes it tries to reboot itself. Many a time it causes an endless loop. I actually had to also modify the registry once I looked the problem up on my iPad.
And then of course there’s the packets being sent to cryptic sounding servers every second.
That “man cave” thing is the mentality behind the sexism in the IT industry and elsewhere. Maybe have a talk with your sons. 3 males have potential for lots of influence on a family tree as it grows, good and bad. I recall growing up and the boys had a tree house club (many did) that did not allow girls. Same thing. Maybe instead of referring to the one female in the house as “mama”, refer to her as CEO.
Wow…. just… wow.
I bet your sister Norma would agree with me. Interesting the brother Norm goes into shock reading about reality.
Go back to your troll cave.
I think you may have missed the point of this article.
I didn’t choose the sex of my children, didn’t teach them to call their mother “Mama,” and I didn’t have anything to do with naming the Man Cave. But when your kids are all boys, things happen. And if they were all girls, other things would happen. So what’s your point?
The point “me” is making is that you are not getting with new social justice program of trying to reform human nature without regard to genes and hormones.
Re: “social justice program of trying to reform human nature” There is a big difference between social justice and reforming human nature. The former can be sought after, promoted, and achieved, but the latter is impossible except possibly through the normal process of evolution. No one should be criticized for telling the truth.
Apologies for drifting off-topic, but “social justice” is a mirage, as Hayek showed.
Hyak was anti-socialism, and was simply conveying the fact that socialism may not be the way to achieve the type of social justice that makes sense for humanity. Society doesn’t thrive on social equality but on the opportunity to work to improve one’s life. That’s the type of social justice that can benefit society in the long run.
Hey, now, us old-timers will tell you that “Man Cave” is at least a major improvement over “He-Man Woman-Haters Club”! 🙂
.
Otay, Panky.
That probably should read “Spanky”, not “Panky”.
Mary Alyce is Cringely’s wife and mom of 3 young’ins, so I wouldn’t doubt her: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Otay%2C+Panky
What color is the sky on your planet?
My niece has girl only events all the time. I’m not saying it’s right but it cuts both ways and to be honest I see more gender discrimination towards males in media, culture, classroom, and workplace. So if you want fairness, complain to advertisers the next time you see a boy or man made to look like a goon without a brain.
A mancave is hardly a place of employment. And if you think finding a place of refuge from members of the opposite sex is a uniquely male phenomenon, you must be too busy finding a place to crusade and don’t get out much.
Goddamn it, I love being male and heterosexual.
Yes, I know it`s 2015.
Hahahaha….my god I cant stop laughing…. seriously people are offended by every spoken word now days…Like women are so oppressed, hahaha!
“If we forget privacy considerations for a…”
Fat chance;
I don’t trust giggle and use them as little as possible, and that is next to nil.
That’s a google. It can be 🙂
Did you may have missed the point of this article.
Privacy – If someone’s going to have my information I’d rather it was Google – at least this is the Devil I know – and I can remember trying to find things in the days before search engines. It’s a reasonable compromise and I have some control over the information that I expose.
As a Nexus phone user, I appreciate the continuous updates that deal with security issues and add new features to my phone. I think this is the big draw for the Google Wi-Fi box – that Google will maintain it, but I’m still going to use and maintain my own firewall. The Google box can sit behind the firewall where I have control over what it can access – it would function as a network (one of three separate fire-walled networks) in my home environment but I’ll wait and see how hackable it is first.
@Edmund
“If someone’s going to have my information I’d rather it was Google – at least this is the Devil I know – and I can remember trying to find things in the days before search engines. It’s a reasonable compromise and I have some control over the information that I expose.”
Since have nowhere near enough knowledge of Google’s analysis systems to make that assessment, you’re actually saying “I trust Google” and/or “I don’t care”.
Exactly – I don’t care. I’m acutely aware of how information leaks around the firewall that we imagine that we have – I think Snowden has illustrated that when you read between the lines in the media hysteria. I limit what I do in a public space to those things that I can defend in public. I abstain from “loyalty cards” and I flush the cookie cache when the browser exits, I do not have a FaceBook or other social media account except for Google+ which I use for entertainment and to maintain a “legend” – I use a VPN, terminating in another country, for anything that I don’t wish to share in an identifiable way – and I am always aware that none of this is perfect, or can be trusted.
Are you a spy or something? I just find all this paranoia about home computers being secure a little bewildering? I do take the basic precautions, anti virus and such and making sure that connections to my bank for instance are done frankly with my wired computer, but lets get real for a second. Most hacking is being done by two types of individuals, script kiddies messing around and people that are serious that are hacking into somewhere, where they may get something? I mean someone hacks me and finds out I watch some internet porn, big deal???
Re: “connections to my bank for instance are done frankly with my wired computer”. FYI those types of connections (financial, shopping) use the https (secure encrypted) protocol between your computer/phone and the bank, so it doesn’t matter if your using wired, wireless, unsecure Wi-Fi, cellular, anyone listening in will see only gibberish. Of course if you’ve connected (securely) to a fake “lookalike” site all bets are off, but that could happen on wired as well.
Really? You know what information Google collects, and what they do with it? Please tell the rest of us, because Google isn’t talking. Your trust of Google is based on what? They have a brass plaque in the lobby promising not to be evil?
Google are “talking” – they do publish information on what personal data they collect and for what purpose. If you are of a conspiracy theory mindset you are free to disbelieve it of course.
“WiFi is everywhere and it generally sucks” – It’s the implementation that sucks in most cases, people think that they can solve problems by adding more access points or a range extender, but never plan the bands that they will operate on and just leave the box on “auto” hoping for the best. I surveyed my house a while back and found all my neighbors AP’s were accessible and all running on 2.4GHz, Ch 1 – nobody’s using 5Ghz or the other 2.4GHz channels.
My Wi-Fi networks (all three of them) work fine throughout the house and garden.
I was an evaluator for a third party of the box. Although all of my report is not for public consumption, here’s some highlights I found. Please note that this could change at any time since Google can update all or any of their routers:
1. DNS was fixed to Google public DNS. You had no choice.
2. Certificates go through Google
3. VPNs appear to have a relay through Google that is undetectable to the VPN software end points. I found a latency between two end points on the router that could not be explained.
4. We placed it behind a firewall and into 9./26./29./30./ (I’ve only shown the IP V4 examples) networks to see what it would do when it found itself inside a “simulated” IBM, AT&T or DoD network on the wired side. We also tried Russian and Chinese IP V4 simulated networks. It went nuts transmitting discovery packets and some other encrypted payload packets. I believe that if your network addressing or topology is of interest, they’ll go after it through the wired connection.
Performance was good, but not that dramatic unless you had a mix of old and new Wi-Fi devices and used multiple frequencies and access methods.
I suspect they’ll insert advertising in the future and force search engine and storage selection.
I’d firewall it from any wired networks with devices performing sensitive functions or containing sensitive data.
Wow, excellent comment, Charlie Tuna.
given its hardware/firmware chops – i think this is big G’s first foray into consolidated IoT land.
interesting dilemma for consumers – either deal with dozens (hundreds?) of competing firms/EULAs,
or centralize them with products from one vendor (IOS or Brillo?). probably sucks either/which/way.
and given the trends in the US hardware/software/legal/policy arena re: IoT, discouraging for privacy pursuits.
i mean – does a post-TISA landscape prosecute data privacy as a “restraint-of-trade”?
is big G a better choice for being the devil-we-know? time to go read the OnHub EULA…
I bet you’re right about the IoT angle. I’m a cheap person, so if you’re shocked at my delay in replacing a ten year old router for $50 try to imagine the heel-dragging on a perfectly adequate $1400 refrigerator with tired wireless.
Dozens of products around the home will have connectivity that you may or may not be using, but who wants to go around once a year and make sure they’re configured well (or turned off)? How do you update the crap browser or network adapter on your TV? Worse yet, how about your clock radio or your garage lights? There are going to be swarms of poorly connected devices dragging your wireless down, so this kind of dingus is going to be vital for the foreseeable future.
Vital dingus?
The English language is a living thing, endlessly tortured on the rack of popular expression.
It’s not a popular expression, hence my question. “Dingus” is derogatory, so it’s not vital. On that basis “vital dingus” is an oxymoron. I was just trying to figure out what you meant by it.
The word “dingus” is not derogatory, or at least necessarily so. It means the same thing as “whatsit” or “thingamajig”. See for example, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dingus. Or watch The Maltese Falcon.
My apologies. You’re absolutely right. I must have been having a bad search day.
alphabet is evil.
[…] [ Source : I, Cringely ] […]
I don’t share the concerns of the privacy advocates here. This device seems to fix a common technical problem that I just don’t have. I have a dozen-year-old Linksys router (B/G Wifi) that reaches every corner of the house – doesn’t go down and serves: an iPod, an iPad, an iPhone, 2 Android phones, a Chromecast, and a PS3. I’ve been too cheap to buy anything else, and don’t need to, because it just works.
One thing your decade-old Linksys does not have is IPv6 support. Another thing it doesn’t have is DNSSEC support. It also can’t route faster than 20 Mbps or so.
.
If your heart is dead-set on keeping that thing, what I would recommend is disabling all the routing functions of that obsolete thing, getting a modern router, maybe something running OPNsense (https://opnsense.org/), and using the old router purely as an access point.
Does anyone even care about IPv6 in the home?
I do. I really, really, really want IPv4 to die.
The workarounds to make new applications work without adequate address space have been impressive, but there are fundamental limitations to IPv4 with NAT. As multiple layers of NAT become widespread, through CG-NAT, more applications are going to break.
IPv4 was never intended to be used for this long. Vint Cerf, the person responsible for IPv4’s 32-bit limit, calls it a prototype. IPv6 is the real Internet.
Thank you Google for raising the wifi bar!!!
.
If you never buy OnHub, or don’t trust Google, or don’t want an outside source maintaining your wifi, or whatever issue you may have Google just did you a huge favor. Everyone else in the wifi market is going to have to take a long hard look at OnHub and make their own products better.
.
I have my wifi access point attached to an electronic timer. Every day at 3AM it cycles the power to the wifi off, then on. Forcing a daily reboot of my wifi has helped improve reliability…massively.
.
There are a lot of U-verse customers in my neighborhood. When AT&T sets up their wireless, they crank the RF power to its full setting. The signal from 3 and 4 homes away is more powerful than my own wifi. I periodically have to check the wifi signals and move mine to a less busy channel.
.
Between the devices in my home (xbox, playstation, roku, chromecast, netflix, tablets, …) and my U-verse neighbors my wifi takes a beating from both ends. A better wifi access point will be a welcome improvement.
.
Also, my $35 Raspberry Pi 2 has more processing power than my wifi access point — and that bothers me. The manufacturers have been notoriously cheap on their hardware and that is contributing to the problem.
.
Competition and leading by good example are powerful forces in the market. I may not buy a Google OnHub, but I suspect the wireless products I use will get a lot better over the next year — thanks to Google.
.
It’s the TiVo of Wi-Fi access points, and like standalone TiVo boxes, it’ll have people wondering why they should spend an extra $200 on this when their Internet/cable provider already supplies them with a Wi-Fi AP bundled into their cable/DSL modem.
.
The only time most people think “I need to upgrade/replace the Wi-Fi router from my Internet provider” is when it’s totally broken, not when it’s simply slow, or even when it’s acting flakey–even highly technical people just default to the solution of “Guess I need to power-cycle my WiFi router again. I should probably replace it. Eh, I’ll think about that later. Right now I just need to get on the Internet!” when their WiFi AP is flaking out.
.
Plus no one’s even mentioned how Google wants you to put this out in a prominent place like the center of your living room, rather than shoved into the corner where your cable/DSL enters the room, where everyone’s used to hiding their Wi-Fi APs.
.
This is yet another Google hardware product that, regardless of intentions, is going to go nowhere thanks to Google’s continuing utter cluelessness about the consumer market.
.
P.S. I can totally imagine that part of Google’s inspiration for this comes from the illicit sniffing they got caught doing on people’s home Wi-Fi networks from their Streetview cars as they drove down the road. “Now we can do the same thing and people will be *paying us* for the privilege! Awesome!”
I’ve often wondered why wifi was so hard. It’s good to know that even the great Cringely has issues with it. I agree with John, at least Google has added a little more competition in the market.
Holy cattle! I want one! Question? Can I have Amazon deliver it to me via drone, while I’m uploading gigabytes of videos/photos while I’m at my local Whataburger in Austin, tx? Dang! I hope so!
I’ve had Apple routers for years and they just work. I have all my family and friends get them and they never have problems with them (hence I never get support calls). While friends with other routers are constantly restarting them. I think the software in Apple routers is reason for this.
I concur, I purchased an Apple Airport Extreme wireless router (the first with gigabit ports) and it has worked flawlessly ever since. Still gets updates from Apple for firmware. It is limited to N speeds but none of my current Macs or PC’s can connect with AC so who cares?
Re: “none of my current Macs or PC’s can connect with AC”. AC routers are backward compatible. Although I’ve never tried one, I have heard that they can improve performance through beam-forming at its end. Although I’m suspicious whether that makes it harder for a second or third device trying to connect from the opposite direction.
I live in a 1200 Square foot spanish bungalow built in 1920. I can’t get a wifi signal from the living room to my daughters bedroom. 🙁 I have an older router and wouldn’t mind spending 200 dollars on a router, IF IT WOULD WORK.
I think my solution will be running an ethernet cable from the living room to the bedroom a distance of 15 feet.
If you’re wondering why I can’t get a signal 15 feet, the answer is simple. Our house has lathe and plaster walls. In 1928 when they built the house they nailed 1.5″ lathe on every stud and every ceiling joist. Thus creating a faraday cage in every room. Would a better router work? Who knows, but without some guarantee I’m not spending money.
You may be suffering from the “chicken wire” problem – where chicken wire was used as a backing for the plaster. Turns out that this almost perfectly blocks older 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi frequencies, but I believe the newer 5-GHz frequencies are less susceptible to this.
.
I’m in the market for a new Wi-Fi router myself. The OnHub looks interesting, so I may end up buying one, but I’m going to wait until it’s been out there for a little while and people have taken a good, hard, firsthand look at it.
.
Our house in Charleston was built in 1852 and had lathe and plaster, too, but the problem wasn’t the lathe (which is, after all, wood and a non-conductor) but the plaster itself, which apparently has metallic powder of some sort in it. Your problem is chicken wire, as the other reader said, possibly compounded by a tile roof, which has similar problems to plaster. One way around this is to use a HomePlug bridge to the trouble spot, routing Ethernet over your home electric wiring. This works better than it used to but you must have matched components (same manufacturer and model) and remember it’s a bus network just like old coaxial Ethernet, so don’t expect more than 10 percent of the rated speed, which is still faster than most (but not all) Internet connections.
I’ve had much more trouble getting 5 GHZ to go a distance, compared to 2.4 GHZ.
My favorite extender has been to run DD-WRT on a router in “router bridge” mode, where it defines a second Wifi network with a new SSID When it receives a packet from the original network, headed to a host on the new extension network, it just bridges it. Because it is a separate SSID, the bridge knows what traffic is on which segment, and so doesn’t have to waste bandwidth duplicating traffic between hosts on the same segment (SSID).
I assume everyone is talking about lath and plaster though I imagine that a lathe could cause reception problems as well.
Bob had a comment (above) about his lathe: “but the problem wasn’t the lathe (which is, after all, wood and a non-conductor)”
I am very amused to see that, when Google wanted a maintainable router, they went with a Qualcomm Atheros SoC *and* ath10k-compatible open-source WiFi. So many other high-end routers use Broadcom, Marvell, or Cavium chipsets, which are probably cheaper, but the networking drivers are strictly closed-source.
.
I was somewhat concerned, because a router is not a phone. You can’t update a phone after 2 years, but at that point you replace it with a new phone, so it doesn’t matter. A router often lasts 10 years, and it needs commensurate support. When the networking drivers are closed-source, you can’t upgrade the kernel to fix security problems, and then you have forever-day security vulnerabilities. Google has enough of those with Android.
.
My other concern is IPv6 support. ISP-provided routers generally don’t route IPv6 subnets to downstream routers, so you need to manually configure the ISP’s router to place it into bridge mode, or do IPv6 in UDP tunneling. I wonder what Google’s plans are, there.
I, for one, would throw up my hands and gladly welcome the Google WiFi overlords (for now). Ethernet remains best, but wireless is path of least resistance ( and, no tangle tangle tangle wires ). But $199? That’s still a bargain for some daddy gear heads with wireless printers, desktops, three to six mobile devices, etc., but I’ll wait for precipitous price drop after mass adoption, maybe after a couple of Christmases
How did this get to be a $199 router? I don’t see a price on the link you provide and I see $350 on Amazon.
Even an Apple time capsule with a 2TB drive is $300.
Bob got the price from here: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/googles-onhub-is-a-200-wi-fi-router-and-smart-home-hub/ Probably worth waiting until enough people have tried, and been disappointed by, it. 🙂 Or shop around, Amazon is often more expensive than other sites.
Some current routers *can* have their firmware updated remotely. And, there are already some routers (not many as far as I know) that self-update their firmware. For more on router firmware updates see my RouterSecurity.org firmware page
http://www.RouterSecurity.org/firmware.updates.php
As for Google and privacy, I am curious to see if their router uses Google’s DNS servers or defaults to using those from the ISP. More importantly though, is whether Google lets you change the DNS servers for those of us that prefer OpenDNS or one of their competitors.
If, as an earlier commenter here said, they force the use of their own DNS servers, that just plays into the existing fear of Google knowing too much about us. It would be stupid on their part, but I expect that’s what they will do. Time will tell.
While I am delighted to see bob quote my last IEEE 802.11 presentation, I have a newer one on youtube, that goes into more detail as to what is wrong with wifi… and how to fix it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vWrFCZXOWk
My apologies for not yet watching the 45 minute video, but I was put off by the title “make Wi-Fi fast”. I’ve found it’s easy to make Wi-Fi fast, just stand next to it. The question most people have is how to make it work all over the house, even though in theory a single Wi-Fi access point should fill a 300-foot diameter circle. We don’t need speed, we need range. I found the best I could do was buy an old Linksys WRT54G, retrofitted with extra long antennae plus the dd-wrt firmware that allows for maximum power. Found one on eBay.
there are more reasons than just range for wifi to suck. In fact, why your wrt-54g’s are so good… and present day wifi is often not – is explained 27 minutes into that video, as with the introduction of 802.11n aggregation… we f*ckup – collectively as engineers, and industry.
Ron – I had one of those PCI cards. Worked brilliantly even though I never upgraded the firmware. Used antennae on extension cables/stands. Wi-Fi filled the house, albeit a tad slower than I can get nowadays with fewer bars on the gauge..
In my view this seems such a stunningly bad idea that I hardly know where to begin: Google has demonstrated repeatedly that its interests lie with Google through the exploitation of information about their users. I avoid the company at all costs and would never consider allowing Google to control any part of my local network for any reason whatsoever. Not even DNS. Further, why would I want automatic/remote, and potentially hidden, updates to my router’s ROM? I am happy to be notified by the vendor when an update is available. And why it is necessary. It’s not difficult. For me, WiFi works just fine, although I’m willing to concede that it is problematic for some. I’m confident that at some point current issues will be resolved. Without Google.
“If we forget privacy considerations for a moment…”
Wait, what?
(Quoting Tom Waits:) The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.
I’ve been playing around with long-haul Wifi on 2.4, 5 and 3.4 (amateur radio only) GHz bands. It’s fairly easy to get distances of 10-15 miles if the noise floor is low, and even further if you start getting very large antennas. The biggest problem is the noise floor on 2.4GHz. It is getting very difficult to find open spectrum. 5GHz is much better, and 3.4 GHz is wide open (being a “hams only” band).
In a year or so, the cell phone manufacturers will start rolling out LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) on the 5GHz band. LTE-U uses cellular signaling in the unlicensed spectrum. There’s a lot of concern that because LTE was created to use managed spectrum, it will take over the whole band and dramatically raise the noise floor.
The biggest problem with Wifi is that people don’t know anything about antennas or radio signal propagation. I always put the router up as high as possible in the closet, and the latest network upgrade I bought a Ubiquiti UniFi AC access point. It was a lot more expensive than the $59 special at Best Buy, but it actually works. It is powered over the Ethernet cable, so it can be mounted up high (I have mine mounted on a small alcove near the ceiling) without having to do anything other than fish an Ethernet cable and install a mounting plate. It is there primarily for phones and tablets, anything that’s fixed is on a wired connection. The flexibility also makes it easy to locate the AP in a very central location.
Running Ethernet is a very simple process. Wall fishing isn’t at all hard if you stick to inside (non-insulated) walls, and even with insulation it’s not all that hard. You might even find your “lousy” Internet access works much better when you have full duplex gigabit Ethernet connections between the router and your PC.
I got some plenum rated CAT-5 and some plenum rated innerduct. I ran the innerduct through the air return duct in our home from the basement to attic. I pulled several CAT-5 lines through it and then ran each through my attic to the desired rooms. It is safe and meets national wiring codes.
Do. Not. Want.
Next…
When the MaidSafe network arrives and it is coming, the Google business model will begin to fall over. If you can’t collect data on your users, how will profit flow? Boy it would be nice to have 13 antennas in the home of millions of people, just to listen to the electrical ‘noise” coming from their keyboards and monitors, phones and tablets.
If you design a web ad carefully I bet you can “hear” it when it is displayed. If you own the router/listener/monitor then you can connect the dots and hear what everyone is seeing and connect that to the IP address. This gets around end to end strong encryption if your business model is to sell the viewing habits of your users.
I hope Google will still be able to “crawl” the network so I can get useful search results.
Bob,
Sorry to nitpick, but Metcalfe’s right about WiFi being Ethernet where it counts. Metcalfe’s original Ethernet spec used CSMA/CD, and so does WiFi. Modern full duplex switched Ethernet networks don’t really need CSMA/CD any more. That means that WiFi has more in common with Metcalfe’s original Ethernet than current Ethernet does.
For those unfamiliar with that acroynm, it stands for “Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detect”. Original Ethernet had all devices connected to the same piece of coaxial cable via taps and splices. When one device wanted to talk to another, it was like an old-fashioned party line. When you wanted to talk, you had to make sure nobody else was talking first. If two people/devices both tried to talk at the same time, they’d detect the “collision” and wait a random length of time before trying again.
I’m fairly certain wifi uses collision avoidance (CA rather than CD) but interesting point otherwise about it being more like ethernet than ethernet given modern switching technology.
I commend Google for attempting once again to save the general public from themselves, however I won’t be using this product or any product like it.
I’ve used custom built routers for many years, ever since my needs outgrew DD-WRT’s capabilities. Since that time, I’ve replaced all of my WAPs with stand-alone hardware and will not go back to anything integrated. I use 1 WAP per floor (x2 floors), and have adjusted each WAP to use the frequency that was least populated at the time of deployment (I recheck this occasionally, as needed).
The fact that this device uses Google’s Public DNS is enough on it’s own to lead to my decision not to use it, and to ensure that I will not recommend this device unless the installation will be for a classroom. Google’s Public DNS has too many issues where it comes to content delivery networks to be used for home -use without causing a ton of complaints from my clients, so I’ll just skip that little headache. I appreciate that Google believes they can improve the net with this device, but I won’t be helping them to prove or disprove it.
Out of everything I’ve read on this page about this device, it’s ‘Charlie Tuna’ that caught my attention, particularly with the part about the VPN relay issue. This sounds as if the device isn’t what is receiving the VPN connection at all, but rather some sort of virtual instance of it is doing the receiving while inside of Google’s network, before route-forwarding the traffic on to the end-point device. If that’s the case, it would certainly account for the latency described. Regardless, just the simple fact that I (as the owner of said device) would not have access to completely configure the device, nor to inspect its
configuration, is enough to guarantee that I will always refuse not only to buy one, but even to use one if it were given to me.
That’s like saying, “we’ll give you free phone service, just don’t ever tamper with the equipment.”… “oh… you found a backdoor?… what were you doing violating the usage agreement?”
I would be very skeptical about a Google router. Their track record serving the end-user
in mass markets is poor. They also have a habit of dropping services that don’t perform
to their expectations or no longer serve Google’s needs, with little regard for the users
who have come to depend on those services. When I do business with a company
who’s stated intention is to produce network hardware, I can expect them to continue
doing so for the forseeable future (buy-outs and bankruptcies notwithstanding). Producing
consumer-level hardware is pretty far out of Google’s wheelhouse. What happens when
they get bored with the project or change their minds?
Also, “updated remotely by google” = “possibly hacked remotely by someone other than Google”
I don’t have nearly as much faith in consumer networking companies.
What actually happens is that the company produces a particular model, and might release updates for a couple years. And then they come out with a new model, sometimes with the same name as the old model, and discontinue updates for the old model. Meanwhile, the old router stays in service for maybe another 10 years. Only if some major PR disaster happens, like with the D-Link backdoors, do they revisit the old routers.
.
Enterprise routers are the worst, financially. Cisco is famous for having routers so difficult to use that they have an entire certification program, and then after you spend so much money on the router they strongly encourage you to buy a pricey service subscription to get updates.
.
Who knows what Google’s entry in this market will do. Maybe they’ll make it socially acceptable to spend $200 on a new router every couple years, like what Apple did to phones. Or maybe not. Google’s marketing hasn’t been as compelling as Apple’s.
All good points, but re: “updated remotely by google” = “possibly hacked remotely by someone other than Google” may not be a real problem. Microsoft has been updating stuff remotely and automatically since the 90s. iOS and Android also do that, as do browsers like Chrome and Firefox. With Windows 10, you can’t even turn the Windows Updates off. Although I can’t say why, I’d guess it has something to do with establishing a secure, authenticated, connection.
This sounds awesome. I would really to get one myself. But by doing constant tuning and updates, is that not a hassle, or even so, what are the procedures?
I think your email addresses may have been harvested.
The day after I posted my original comment, my SPAM volume went from 0 to 60 per day.
(Hope I am using the same address for this post, or it is burned too).
If it’s not getting lots of spam, it’s not a real address. 🙂
Make use of this app http://10minutemail.com/ they will provide you with a temporary email address which you can use. Hope that helps in future
I think your email addresses may have been harvested.
After my first post my daily SPAM went from 0 to 60 on the address I used.
I don’t think a working email address is required.
(If you’re reading this, it wasn’t.)
It doesn’t have to be a real address, but on rare occasions, Bob may use it to provide a personal response. In that case, you won’t receive those personal words of wisdom.
Interesting piece (as usual), cheers Bob. But the business of someone else controlling my router really creeps me out.
I know it is a cold thread but what you really need is some smart routers from Ruckus. They can hand off to each other and are smart enough not to tread on each other while finding the best channels to use.
No published prices or sellers. “Buy now” leads to a lengthy form promising a rep will contact you.
They’re enterprise-class access points. Not routers. You can’t even download the manual without a current account at Ruckus. And, being an access point and not a router, it doesn’t exactly replace the Google OnHub. But the average household probably already has a router.
You can buy a wide selection of Ruckus access points on Amazon. The most expensive are over $1000, but even a dual-band 802.11n access point for about $150 seems to get decent reviews.
$995 Ruckus Wireless ZoneFlex R700: Interesting Amazon review: This device is intended to support up to 500 connections. I wanted awesome performance from at least one and maybe up to 30. At a distance of one foot with optimal settings, in an environment with no other 5GHz users the best ACTUAL throughout I could achieve was 149Mbps. This is not to be confused with the reported Link speeds which is all any of these manufacture’s advertise. I can consistently get 95Mbps of throughput from $130 dollar junk devices also. I have very recently purchased every high end consumer and this enterprise grade 11AC AP and out of all the 11AC units this one did perform the best, but was only marginally better than a far cheaper Dual Band N speed device. Folks… 11AC isn’t here yet. Cisco has an 1850 11AC that I just couldn’t get yet using Dual wave and 2 NICS that could be bonded in a lagg. From my research, that might be one worth trying, but I doubt it. Go with a CISCO Aironet 2602 for Fast dual band N speed. Additional notes, under standalone mode the Web UI was unacceptably slow. You had very limited options for setting up such as expensive device also. One thing I did like was that it was much heavier than other wifi devices. Normally I would associate that with some quality. Perhaps with several hundred users this device would shine, but don’t think in this case more money will get you the best for the tech demanding home user. I run mock cloud cluster local and to AWS and wanted to be able to quickly get multi GB OS image from my mac to my SAN without the wire. Local network speed in my home where I do development was important to me. This still won’t free me from the wire which is by far the KING at 990Mbps of throughput everytime.
When we decided to start offering network services, we chose Ruckus (for WiFi) after reviewing several vendors and surveying businesses and network engineers regarding their experience with other brands. I also setup a Ruckus system at home using their lowest grade 802.11n APs and have been blown away. Definitely not Gb, speeds, but exceeds my needs 99% of the time as an IT Professional and home use. Here is a good third party review comparing Ruckus to the rest https://www.ruckuswireless.com/carnet-performance-testing
[…] Google’s OnHub router may save WiFi from itself Google this week introduced its first WiFi router and my initial reaction was “Why?” WiFi access points and home routers tend to be low-margin commodity products that could only hurt financial results for the search giant. What made it worth the pain on Wall Street, then, for Google to introduce this gizmo? And then I realized it is Google’s best hope to save the Internet… and itself. WiFi is everywhere and it generally sucks. WiFi has become the go-to method of networking homes and even businesses. I remember product introductions in New York back in the 80s and 90s when we were told over and over again that it cost $100 per foot to pull Ethernet cable in Manhattan (a price that was always blamed […] […]
A little late, but The Wirecutter has reviewed OnHub, and found its speed and range about half as good as their recommended router, and twice as expensive: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-router/
This is indicative of a common problem in business.
.
While it is nice of Google to step up, identify a problem, and offer a solution. This work, this product will never be more than a tiny, very tiny blip on the financial statement. Unlike Chromecast it will be very hard for the accounts to like this product to $10’s of Billions of business for Google. At some point when Wall Street gets a firmer grip on Google’s management and board, products like this will disappear. Projects like this will disappear. If it can’t add $10’s of Billions in new revenue, Google shouldn’t be looking at it.
.
Why can’t a large, successful business have a number of tiny, very tiny businesses too? The reason is simple, the accountants look only at the numbers. They lack faith or vision. They can’t see how something like this has any value to the business. Wall Street has even less faith, vision, or the ability to cope with small products in a big business.
.
While this product is a consumer and engineering triumph, it will become an annoyance to the money people.
Will this make my 2010 15 MacBook Pro go faster, faster, faster?
That’s Google. Everything is possible with Google 🙂
I gathered useful information on this point . Thank you posting relative information and its now becoming easier to complete this assignment
Useful information.I am actual blessed to read this article.thanks for giving us this advantageous information.I acknowledge this post.and I would like bookmark this post.Thanks
Wonderful blog! This is very informative site. I am totally pleased by your excellent work. Many thanks for sharing.
This was among the best posts and episode from your team it let me learn many new things.
Your article is great, I’ve read it many times and still have many feelings.
A mancave is hardly a place of employment. And if you think finding a place of refuge from members of the opposite sex is a uniquely male phenomenon, you must be too busy finding a place to crusade and don’t get out much.
Very interesting blog. Alot of blogs I see these days don’t really provide anything that I’m interested in, but I’m most definately interested in this one. Just thought that I would post and let you know.
Great! Thanks for sharing the information. That is very helpful for increasing my knowledge in this field.
Oh your site is amazing, keep share with us. very nice interior, i love all. thanks for share 🙂
Do not know what to say, I liked your article and I hope you will have many entries or more.
Taksim resim kursu ayrıcalıkları ile almış olduğunuz eğitimler sonucunda güzel sanatlara hazırlık alanında kendinizi geliştirerek güzel sanatlar fakültesi ve güzel sanatlar liseleri yetenek sınavlarından önce ön hazırlık yaparak sınavlarda başarılı olacak ve istediğiniz eğitimi almaya hak kazanabileceksiniz.
Bunun dışında ilgi duymuş olduğunuz çizim teknikleri ile üretmiş olduğunuz sanat eserleri ile kendi tarzınızı belirlemiş olursunuz.
https://www.arkhesanat.com/
Türkiyenin en büyük servis sağlayıcısı olan Turkcell ile interneti fiber hızda kullanmaya ne dersiniz ?
Superonline internet ile hızınızı 16 katına çıkarttın. Anı Turkcell ayrıcalıklar ile yaşamak için bizimle iletişime geçebilirsiniz.
A great possibility for me and it was a superb knowledge to view this site. Very difficult to uncover these beneficial web page or web site. I have many devices and achieving proper picture of these worked well and energy continues to be seeing about this weblog. Often my own intend to make my personal site as well as my own enjoyment is growing due to this page. I we do hope you may well be more effective.
Thanks for all your information, Website is very nice and informative content.
Thank you for another wonderful article. Where else could anyone get that kind of information in such an ideal way of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I am on the look for such information.
Written, Thank you for the introduction of a range of information that is very interesting to see in this article
Great stuff. This is really a fascinating blog, lots of stuff that I can Get into. One thing I just want to say is that your Blog is so perfect!
Hi my name is Sandra and I just wanted to drop you a quick note here instead of calling you. I came to your I, Cringely Google’s OnHub router may save WiFi from itself – I, Cringely page and noticed you could have a lot more visitors. I have found that the key to running a popular website is making sure the visitors you are getting are interested in your subject matter. There is a company that you can get targeted traffic from and they let you try the service for free for 7 days. I managed to get over 300 targeted visitors to day to my site. Check it out here: http://ittsy.com/it/3x
Doğru ve tarafsız haberciliğin tek adresi: https://www.kamuhaber.net Güncel kamu haberleri, memur ve memur adayları ile ilgili tarafsız bilgilerin yer aldığı haber portalı..