Impacts of Encryption Everywhere (any solution?)

Wed May 30 20:49:20 UTC 2018

The reason you see one or two bars in inner cities in 2018, is that given fixed spectrum, bandwidth on the aggregate can only increase if you take many smaller lower power radios, and carpet the area with them.  

The only other solutions are radically increase the power, or radically increase the width of the spectrum.

-Ben

> On May 30, 2018, at 1:44 PM, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.mu> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 30/May/18 19:47, McBride, Mack wrote:
> 
>> Scott hit the nail on the head.
>> Hotel/café/mall wifi is generally horrible for the same reason urban 4g is horrible.
> 
> Urban 4G in Africa isn't that bad, actually. The factors are many - not all users are on smart phones, or if they are, may default to 2G/3G more often than 4G. Also, because data prices are not pocket-friendly in many cases, the amount of time spent on the radio network for data is not significant.
> 
> On the other hand, I generally get poor coverage (i.e., 1 bar) even in urban cities when I travel the U.S., particularly on AT&T, and sometimes, T-Mobile. Never quite understood that, but I've been having a side discussion from this thread with some mates that has shed some light, which makes a bit of sense to me. So not sure if that's the issue you face, or if it's something else.
> 
> My point is while the technology has its intrinsic limitations, user patterns and applications that differ between the developed and developing worlds may have their part to play.
> 
> 
>> The backhaul and load on the available spectrum is usually excessive.
> 
> Spectrum, yes... see my previous response to K. Scott.
> 
> Backhaul isn't a major issue - pretty much, every MNO in Africa has their own Metro and national fibre backbone; and in some cases, even their own submarine backbone.
> 
> 
>> Carrier wifi is usually (but not always) equipped with decent backhaul.
> 
> Wi-fi offload has been attempted a few times by one or two MNO's in Africa. But they can't decide between beta testing or launching. Bottom line is wi-fi offload is not big in Africa, and yet the 3G/4G radio network is still able to support traffic levels. I suspect it will become more popular as the radio load increases, although one would say the MNO's are looking at 5G before they consider wi-fi offload seriously.
> 
> 
>> However carrier wifi in stadiums usually suffers from problems with spectrum saturation.
>> Any wifi or 4G will eventually run out of available bandwidth on assigned spectrum.
>> Wifi has the advantage of being able to use smaller range restricted access points but
>> the stadium example shows why even that is limited when you have 40K people trying
>> to access the internet.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> Mark.