There are dozens of reasons why Wi-Fi doesn't scale to the masses. Especially outdoors or in large spaces. Here are a few:
- Wi-Fi is half-duplex. Only one transmitter can broadcast on a channel at any given time. If the transmitting radio is slow (weak connection, older technology, bad-driver, etc...), then all other devices must wait for the transmission to end before they can get their airtime to transmit.
- A Wi-Fi radio that conforms to the Wi-Fi spec must co-operate when on the same channel as other wireless networks near it. This means that the google APs should be honoring the management traffic and broadcasts from other Wi-Fi radios near them. In a place like Mountain View, there is a *LOT* of Wi-Fi.
- 802.11n performance is dependent on multi-pathing. An AP on a pole in the middle of a park doesn't give much in the way of surfaces to reflect a signal off of. You end up at my first point- slow transmission, lower cell capacity.
- While two clients on an AP each can "hear" the APs transmissions, they may not "hear" each others'. Collisions galore.
- The ISM bands that Wi-Fi operates in are full of non-Wi-Fi interference. Wireless baby monitors are notorious for killing Wi-Fi, as are cheap wireless video cameras. Cordless phones,motion detectors, microwave ovens, remote control toys all play a part in the general noise within these RF bands.

Yes and no. There is boatloads more space in the 5GHz spectrum, and as another person has already stated, 5GHz doesn't do well with solid objects, so the signal will not propagate nearly as far.

Where .11ac is going to cause problems is when wave 2 of the standard hits the market in another year or two- 160MHz wide channels will eat up the available 5GHz spectrum real quick. We'll have multi-user MIMO with that release though, which will mean much more efficient use of the spectrum.

Wilson deregulated the *generation* of electricity in California- The only portion of a regulated utilities' electric bill that the utilities were *not* allowed to profit from. The system was begging to be gamed by those who bought up the power plants. On top of that, he took the private, cooperative operation of the transmission grid and handed it over to a state-run agency (CAL-ISO). Have you ever heard of a state agency doing anything efficiently?

As for Rancho Seco- That plant was a meltdown waiting to happen. Bad engineering and even worse management. A little utility like SMUD had no business being in the nuclear generation game in the first place. We are still paying for that nightmare in our bills every month.

And the Kings- They are a failure economically because Sacramento's main industry is Government. For as over-funded as most of our state agencies are, they are not allowed to buy sky boxes or court-side seats. There is not a single Fortune 500 company headquartered within 50 miles of the state capitol. When your 3 largest private employers in town are hospitals (feeding off the very generous health care benefits that government employees receive), you know you are in trouble. I wish KJ would put the energy that he is putting in to keeping the Kings in to fostering a better business climate for companies to grow here. Just look at the SF Bay Area- 8 million people and 6 professional franchises (7 if you count MLS). The greater Sacramento area has 2 million people and we are about to lose our *only* professional franchise because we can't sell sky boxes/premium seats at a rate that would justify building a new arena around them.

Cisco's acquisition of ThinkSmart Technologies was all about leveraging WiFi for customer analytics. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac49/ac0/ac1/ac259/thinksmart.html

It's more than just tracking who goes in and out of a store- it's about dwell time, product placement and spot marketing.

Seriously though. If your belongings mean that much to you, ship them ahead of time with insurance. Otherwise, keep them on your person or travel by means that you won't have to worry about them.

Because WiFi is still half-duplex, similar to hubs that many of us used in the mid-90's. 802.11ac starts to address some of the of the simplex issues by placing users on individual spatial streams within a channel, but the communication between the client and the access point is still half-duplex, it's just somewhat isolated from other clients connected to the same AP...

The other major issue is that WiFi is still using ISM frequencies... 900MHz was squashed before WiFi was prevalent, 2.4GHz is squashed now, and with Apple finally putting a 5GHz radio in the iPhone, 5GHz will be a mess in the next few years... though with higher throughput, higher bandwidth and lower signal propogation, 5GHz will be more manageable.

The whole conversation is somewhat moot though, as 802.11ac has yet to be ratified.

+1 for Arista. They are doing some pretty amazing stuff. Check out http://techfieldday.com/2012/arista-presents-networking-field-day-3/ for videos of a recent tech talk.

If not for Microsoft's 5 billion dollar investment in Apple in1997, Apple would probably not exist today. Just saying...

Well that AND battery life.

Why wait to turn it on? You're right, it does only take 5 minutes. Even if only 5 of your clients connect @ 5GHz, you have 5 users that may see an improvement and may become advocates for you and what you are doing.

Money is not the problem, accountability is.

Here in California, local property tax money is redistributed throughout the state. Often schools is poorer neighborhoods get more money per student than the schools in more affluent areas. Heck, in some districts teachers get paid more to teach in the under-achieving schools. Nothing has gotten better except the employment at schools.

Many, and the teacher unions have shot it down every time. Good teachers can not be rewarded and bad teachers can not be punished. The only reward is for those who stay around the longest.

I don't know if apple fixed their wireless driver in IOS 5, but I have found that the iPad running IOS 4 does not 'steer' to 5GHz when presented with the same SSID on 2.4GHz and 5GHz. This has been a consistent experience using Cisco, HP (E-series), and Ruckus wireless networks. With some of my customers, we have had to create different SSIDs for the bands to get their fleets of iPads off 2.4GHz.

If he really meant it, he wouldn't have shown the phone...

marketing fluff, nothing to see here.

I was in High School 20 years ago and not until 1992 was I even exposed to NetWare (as a client user in college, I remember everything being menu driven. wow, that was a long time ago...). I'm interested- what did NetWare then do then that AD doesn't do now?

I am not trying to troll or discount your comment- I'm truly interested. I have also heard a bunch of folks talk up eDirectory being the shit as well, but have yet to come across it.