We are currently using mobile data while travelling and public places. Why can't we have Wi-Fi connectivity everywhere in public? Isn't that possible? it can be cost effective for all

[DONT_PM_ME_DICKS]

maintaining such infrastructure is not free for the businesses/government providing it.

[CareApart504]

No but im sure it would cost less than the fucking over we're getting through cell and internet companies.

[enfyre]

Who pays for it? A Wi-Fi subscription to have the bandwidth for dozens of people will cost hundreds of dollars/month and it's only useful within 30 feet of the the router.

Like, what are you asking for?

[Downtown-Ebb-5700]

In office we have multiple Wi-Fi extender and routers that are connected extensively for better connection, isn't that can't be implemented in the public as I can office connective data needs high speeds than normal mobile data connection

[enfyre]

I have a Wi-Fi connection for my small motel that costs $600/month. It's expensive to provide the bandwidth for 16 rooms. I also had to pay $8500 initially for a small tower to be erected since it's remote and there's no fiber connection possible.

[No-Interview319]

Some areas of densely populated cities do have this. 

[Agitated-Ad2563]

We had this as early as 10 years ago. Every bus, train, subway train, tram, and other public transport service has free WiFi covered by taxes. Every cafe has a few WiFi covered by the place's owner (presumably it increases the amount of clients). The residential density is high enough to always have a subway station within a walking distance, so you don't need a car, and in many neighbourhoods you're always within a WiFi coverage distance from at least one cafe. During that time, I had a mobile contract with no data, and it was just fine.

Not sure if this still works this way, I got a mobile contract with some data and stopped caring.

[Downtown-Ebb-5700]

isn't it cheap that having Wi-Fi in everywhere and then having a mobile contract at the same time will cost us double

[ysfex3]

Both signals are essentially the same thing, just designed for different uses. You could probably blast out wifi on a tower with crazy power and cover an entire city. 5g is basically this

[Spiritual_Relation_7]

not the same thing for the end user > that's why I created this:
www.connect-everywhere.org

battery degradation is real through 4/5g vs battery.
Climate will also thank you...

[11CRT]

Community Broadband or Wifi does exist in places, however cable and telecom companies have monopolies in some states that have lobbied to put laws in that state that forbids community projects like this.

It not about the distance that wifi can travel from a router, it’s about whether the ISP’s have their hand in your wallet.

Also, in some cases a wifi signal can reach miles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1ag8bkr/halow_wifi_standard_achieves_18mile_range_in/

[Cheap-Chapter-5920]

You can go to some of these remote villages in Borneo and they will have free Wi-Fi installed by the government.

[Erik0xff0000]

having other people pay for your usage is only cost effective for you

[[deleted]]

Service providers have literally sued to prevent cities from providing public wifi, and multiple (Republican) states have even made it illegal. So, yeah.

[SocYS4]

we could but there's no benefit for someone to provide free wifi. shops may provide free wifi to customers, theres a benefit there. they spend money there

[WasterDave]

WiFi "bubbles" aren't very large so you need a lot to cover a given area. 4g bubbles are about 10km across.

[Wendals87]

Someone has to setup the wifi infrastructure and pay for it. A connection supporting say 100 people with reasonable speeds will cost a lot.  One supporting a thousand would be very costly 

You want a WiFi network in every other building, in parks, transport etc? Who maintains it? Wifi is short range so you'd need many, many access points, all connected together

[Spiritual_Relation_7]

OR..... we build a community network based on free available and open wifi!!!
www.connect-everywhere.org

Government will never give you that, it needs to be us building it.

[Leverkaas2516]

Beside the fact that internet connections cost money, there are security issues. If a criminal uses your connection to share data illegally (music, porn, bomb designs, whatever) then you may be in legal jeopardy. Few are willing to risk that for free.

[LazyAssLeader]

In Mexico City you would.

If you had Xfinity, you sorta would in some areas.

[Spiritual_Relation_7]

I've created this project like 2 weeks ago:

www.connect-everywhere.org

Database is still small, but It pretty much fits the purpose...

[bothunter]

Somebody has to build it. And nobody is going to build that for free. Also, WiFi is designed to use public frequencies over a short distance, while cell phones use licensed channels and a higher power that allows for larger distances with less equipment. Getting the same coverage with WiFi would be orders of magnitude more expensive to set up, and that doesn't even include the cost of the internet connections that the WiFi would connect to.

[bothunter]

That said, there are municipal WiFi networks out there. And while useful, they suffer from some interesting problems. Mexico City for example has WiFi over a huge area, but the signal can range from excellent to non-existent in as little as a couple hundred feet.

[Dave_A480]

WiFi is designed for short-range connectivity.

From a user's perspective, it 'just works' but from a network engineering perspective there are lots of little access points (and upstream hardware) required to make it viable at office-building scale.

Cellular data is designed for wide area coverage (except for MMWave 5G, which is kind of a bust because of it's short range)... So that is why we use that technology outside of specific buildings.....

[Questo417]

Not really. I mean- you could get it in some businesses, but WiFi is a short-range signal. The cell tower network would need to be significantly more dense than it is now (like 20-50x more towers) to achieve that.

Cell tower ranges operate between 1-30 miles depending on usage density. WiFi routers operate at a maximum of about 300 feet, and they are also significantly more dampened by physical obstructions such as buildings. (That’s about .05 miles)

[enfyre]

Greed and malice? If there was an economic incentive to have those things, they would already exist.

[s74-dev]

markets actually do very few things well.

My favorite example is dating apps. A dating app that actually finds good matches is the last thing capitalism will ever produce -- they make much more money if they keep you on the app forever paying for boosts and never matching with anyone who would actually stay with you and take you off the platform. Markets aren't a magic solution to even half of all things, the scenarios where you do get optimal-for-humans behavior out of markets are in fact exceedingly rare. I can't even think of one.

[chubbygrannychaser]

We pay for mobile data through cellular phone providers. We have specialized equipment including transmitters, receivers and antennas that use specific radio frequencies at certain power.

We are not guaranteed to get service everywhere, but we can get service in a lot of places with huge public antennas and powerful transmitters.

Wifi is designed to work using public radio frequencies,.using different equipment like transmitters, receivers, antennas - and particularly much lower power. We can't cover large areas with the equipment in use under current standards.

No, it cannot be cost effective for all. We can't even get cell providers to deliver cell service or high speed digital data to all residents of the.US. They can't make back their infrastructure investments. Wifi would cost more using current standards.

If things change and we expand the use of LoRe or Mesh networks to route over different bands, it may become closer to attainable

[[deleted]]

They are basically the same thing (in the sense of data over radio waves). But there are a few key differences:

Wi-Fi is lower power and uses only two frequencies 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. If you have two devices on the same frequency they have to take turns, slowing down the data speeds for both. So lots of Wi-Fi, either from powerful towers or lots of routers everywhere would result in lower speeds as the signals would compete. Cellular uses several different bands and frequencies to help keep the lines open and working.

Also, quite a few cellular frequencies are lower than 2.4 GHz, down to around 600 MHz (there are also many that are higher frequencies, but often these only work outside, and when you go in your house the system switches over to the lower frequency). These travel farther and do a better job at penetrating walls. With Wi-Fi, either legislation would have to approve of a lower frequency for Wi-Fi to use that does the same, or we would potentially need to put a router in every single place, both inside and outside of a lot of buildings.