RangeBooster Rocks!

Last week I wrote a bit about the Linksys WRV200 wireless home router. It eventually saved my day struggling with the Nabaztag, and definitely deserves more coverage. Basically I had two issues using my old WRT54GC router. The coverage was not enough - even though I was using an external antenna, I had to install a second WAP54G access point. The good thing was the WAP54G could have been configured as a "wireless repeater", so no extra cabling (only power supply) was necessary. The second issue was the need to have a VPN access to my home network from outside. VPN is a secure "tunnel" you can set up over the Internet, so even being physically "outside" the firewalled network, you can work over this "tunnel" as you were inside (for example print on the home printer or watch a home camera or schedule a TV recording using the web interface to the home TV receiver). After short evaluation (and being a happy Linksys customer) I decided to go for the WRV200. I wanted to test how the RangeBooster technology worked and set up a VPN tunnel. There were other potential bonuses as well - some QoS features (bandwidth allocation for IP telephony), and VLANs (virtual network segments) - I thought might have been useful.

The RangeBooster feature really rocks. The WiFi signal is very good everywhere around my house and I was able to get rid of all the repeaters previously installed. There are several "booster" technologies on the market, most of them use some form of MIMO technology. MIMO (Multiple Inputs Multiple Outputs) concept works by transmitting multiple signals over the same frequency, using spatially - separated multiple antennas. To old school radio engineers this probably sounds like some kind of witchcraft, but thanks to some very sophisticated signal processing algorithms at the receiving end, the potentially interfering signals are recombined in the right order. Linksys makes a lot of buzz on their SpeedBooster feature available in several products. The main difference here is the SpeedBooster transmits different bits over its MIMO channels (and recombining them gains throughput, but requires compatible SpeedBooster hardware on the other end), while the RangeBooster transmits the same bits over MIMO (thus either the left or the right signal gets through), and recombines received multipath (reflected) signals while receiving. This way the RangeBooster gives superior range and coverage without special hardware at the other end (ie. you can benefit from this while using your ordinary WiFi card, like the ones built in the most popular notebooks).

MIMO is a great concept and it has recently been finalized as a 802.11n standard. 802.11n will give you both speed and range boost, so look for a "n" standard based WiFi when shopping for your next computer. But in the meantime the RangeBooster may be just the solution you need, as most WiFi devices are not "n" enabled and really do not require 100Mbps or more, they just need a reliable connection.

There was a company named Airgo, who pioneered MIMO technology, including the 802.11n standard. I said "was", as beginning of December, 2007 Airgo was acquired by Qualcomm, bringing the last dimension of signal multiplication to time- and code- division multiple access mastered to perfection by the San Diego team. Again all radio transmission technology roads lead to the "mighty Q"...

Nabaztag Fiasco

We have adopted a rabbit this Christmas. A smart rabbit, that is - the Nabaztag. The idea of an electronic pet connected to various online services is cute. I will not go into the deep functional details, as you can watch the presentations on the Nabaztag.Com web site. And unfortunately I cannot tell you more from own experience, as we barely managed to get it running before the my.nabaztag.com site went down this morning "due to overwhelming rabbit registrations". But it definitely seems the rabbits have been a commercial success and most of them found their place under Christmas trees. I can only imagine the frustrations of hundreds (thousands?) of people unpacking their rabbits and then trying to configure them over the web service that stopped working.

It looks like the Nabaztag concept is really great, but then we have two very fundamental flaws in the execution. First is an overloaded server that cannot handle Christmas traffic. But I think (and hope) the company will learn its lessons and the infrastructure will be upgraded to handle the increased traffic. Second flaw is equally bad. The rabbit connects to the Internet via WiFi (it is correctly assumed most gadget households already have WiFi/DSL routers). There is some rather complicated setup procedure, as the rabbit has no keyboard to enter the network password. And in the middle of it you realize it probably does not support WPA encryption. Unfortunately at the very moment your computer is connected to the rabbit "ad-hoc, setup-only network", and not to the Internet, so you cannot check it but after some digging you have the answer: "Nabaztag currently supports WEP encryption standards. Note: the current version of Nabaztag will not be updateable to support the new standards.". Bad... very bad... There is a new, enhanced model, the Nabaztag/tag, you can preorder now, but hey, we have just adopted a rabbit! Should we throw it away because it will not be updateable?

And here comes Linksys to the rescue. A couple of months ago I upgraded the WRT-54G router at the heart of my home network to the new WRV-200. I wanted to write about the WRV-200 for several times. It has many smart features on board. The main reason for my upgrade was the support for VPN connections (I wanted to connect to my home network over VPN from outside), but I found the so-called Range Booster technology to be what I really like. Range Booster is something proprietary, but it does not need anything on the "other"side. This means my old and faithful ThinkPad T41 Centrino notebook now picks the WiFi signals anywhere at home or in the garden, without the need for any external antennas or repeaters. If you have coverage problems - the Range Booster thing is highly recommended (do not confuse this with the Speed Booster, which is different and requires compatible radio card on the other end). As I have just said, the WRV-200 is fully loaded with features, and trying to solve the "not - WPA - upgradeable rabbit" I have found out I could configure several (up to four) wireless networks running simultaneously. Each network can have different SSID, encryption, and each can be assigned to a separate VLAN (virtual network segment, up to five of them). So I created another wireless network, just for the rabbit, gave it 128 bit WEP encryption, set the security so only the rabbit can use it and finally after this long procedure the Nabaztag went all-green (that means it connected to the home server).

I just wonder how many rabbits will be returned, as not everyone has a VLAN router at home and an MSC degree required to set up the thing, no to mention the frustration with overloaded server. Something the Nabaztag creators have twelve months now to think about and get ready for 2007 Christmas...

Christmas Gadget Wishlist

Christmas around the corner so may be this is the right time to put together a personal gadget wish list? This time I will try to think of what can be improved with the current state of the art. So no new technologies, just what we have available, but put together as better, smarter designs. Here we go:

• Notebook power supply with several (2-4) USB power sockets. Hey, I take my notebook computer with me on almost all my trips. I bring several other gadgets as well. All of them are charged over the Universal Supply Bus. But at the moment I have to either bring an extra charger or leave my notebook running overnight to charge them. Targus, Kensington, APC, do you hear me?
• Bluetooth A2DP portable speakers. I love taking my music with me. I have a pair of Altec Lansing inMotion portable iPod speakers. They produce very good sound, but there are several drawbacks: (i) they do not charge over USB, (ii) most of the time I do not bring an iPod anymore - on a train or plane I listen to the songs on my smartphone, and there is always entire collection on my notebook. It would be nice to have the speakers connected over the air (A2DP) to the notebook or the smartphone and being able to charge them over USB. Altec Lansing, are you there?
• Windows Mobile as a thumb drive. My Windows - based phone synchronizes over the air with the corporate Exchange server. When connected over USB to the notebook computer it should present itself as a flash memory instead of trying to run Activesync (who uses activesync anymore?).
• Synaptics touch sensitive scroll strip on the MoGo mouse. MoGo mouse is an ingenious design. But I miss the scroll wheel.
• A2DP Bluetooth enabled iPod. On those trips where I take the iPod with me, I would love to have it connected to the Bluetooth speakers (above) or my Bluetooth headphones without extra external interfaces like the BlueTrip.
• Bose noise canceling headphones with built in A2DP. Yeah, I know you may be already bored with my A2DP, but I really really love this Bluetooth almost as much as I hate various cables...
• Portable bus-powered WiFi Access point. On various trips I bring with me the Apple AirPort Express, a very compact WiFi router / access point. Wonder if it would be possible to remove the power supply part, making it even smaller and lighter, just pluggable to the wall RJ-45 Ethernet socket for in-room WiFi freedom. Apple?
• Standard mini-USB socket on the iPod. This would reduce yet another [dedicated] cable to carry.
• Windows operating system that lets me assign different audio devices to different applications. I use Bluetooth headphones for music and VoIP calls, but at the same time the system sounds are coming to the headphones. It would be great to have the warnings, question beeps and such come through the standard PC speakers, while having music and VoIP easy configurable. I have heard Vista can do that, but have not tried yet.
• Simultaneous multiple Google profiles within one browser. I would love to be able to work on more than one profile at the same time. Like having two Google Talk "balloons" (one business, one private) and being able to set different statuses to them. Very often when I am "private available" this means "business busy" and vice versa.... these presence things are really complicated...
• USB powered, A2DP enabled, portable Christmas tree (OK, this is a joke...)
  

I could go on and on... The thoughts above are just from the top of my head. While they would make me happy, they are potentially good revenue generators for many companies. So go ahead - use these ideas, make money and make me happy...

Your personal pinpad

Last week I had very nice holidays in Morocco. Unfortunately there was not any good Internet connection. I wonder why people generally do not demand this going to n-star holiday resorts. You can get everything there, food, drinks, girls included, but the only connectivity option is slow and very expensive (roaming, 2$ per 100KB) GPRS.

Ah... there was an Internet cafe with several PCs. So after several days of being completely off-line, I decided to give it a try. Bought 1 hour of on-line time (4$). Unfortunately there was no way to connect my laptop. I could only use one of the "public" computers there. Quick check showed the PC was running Windows XP SP1, no firewall and no antivirus. How could it survive is a mystery to me. But still touching an unprotected XP SP1 machine was something I could not feel comfortable with. I fired the Microsoft Internet Explorer and started typing the first URL address when I realized I better not did that. Public machine, hundreds of people had used it before me, no protection at all, the most vulnerable browser / OS combination... it could not be clean and safe.

What happens when you sit at an unknown machine and try to type something in? One easy to imagine scenario is all your keystrokes are saved somewhere or even transmitted on-line somewhere else. It takes just a very simple piece of software to do that. I bet 90% or more PCs in public places run software doing this. The remaining 10% use keyboards with built-in key logging hardware buffers. Later on some bad guy takes your credentials to pretend being yourself in order to empty your bank account or at least use your email address... So you type in http://www.mybankaccount.com, then login and password... upppsss.... I just realized I do not want to access any site with my personal profile. Be it a bulletin board or web mail or eBay auctions... almost anything, as I 99% of the Internet sites I visit are requesting my login / password combination. OK be careful, but don't be paranoid. Just the login name won't let a potential hacker get in. But password? Would you really type in YOUR password using an unknown, totally unprotected computer? Thank you, I'll pass...

Necessity is the mother of invention. Last week I envisioned mobile operators as smart pipes providing (paid) authentication services. Does this model fit in here? Sure! Do you trust your mobile phone? I think you do. You use it to do your mobile banking or even confirm stock transactions. So here are two scenarios for the password - prompting websites to consider. Both assume you associate your mobile phone number with your account. Simply when setting up an account with any web site / service, after giving your login name and password, you enter your mobile phone number. So the web site knows it. Then you go to the Internet cafe.

Scenario 1. One time passwords over SMS. You log in, giving your login and instead of typing a "normal" password you click an option "one time password over SMS". Within a second or two the web site sends you a random generated one time password as an SMS message. You read it, type it in on the "public" PC and do not worry if it is captured or sniffed. It is a random one time
password, so a potential hacker will not be able to use it again.

Scenario 2. Personal PINs over USSD. You log in, giving your login name and instead of typing a password you click an option "use my PIN number entered on my phone". The web site forwards PIN request to your mobile network, the application there fires an USSD push message saying "please enter your PIN". You use your personal phone as a pin pad, forcing it to respond to the initial USSD request and the mobile network forwards the PIN to the original web site. The authentication procedure goes on, the site checks if the PIN matches and lets you in. Note you used your trusted phone as a pin pad and the web site did not require you to enter a password. This way the password will never get in the hands of the hackers, while you will still be able to use the public PC with relative safety.

Both scenarios seem to be relatively simple to implement, yet I am not aware of any well known web site that uses any of them. Strange... but may be this is an opportunity?

Smart pipes

Mobile operators. Is their future bright or clouded? In the advent of VoIP are they going to be downgraded to the role of IP packet transport providers, aka “dumb pipes”? This is what is happening to the fixed telephone operators. The fixed guys experience a massive drop in voice revenue, yet they are able to compensate the loss with data services, mostly DSL lines. The long distance charges are disappearing, but again they can potentially be compensated by IPTV services, bringing the fixed line to a triple-play service (voice + data + television). All together the monthly bill you get from your fixed operator most likely remains the same as it used to be ten, or twenty years ago. What is different is what arrives through the line – it used to be just voice, then voice plus analog modem - based dialup data, then voice plus high speed DSL data, then voice plus data plus on-demand TV. Ultimately the standard voice service will probably disappear, leaving us with pure digital, high speed pipe with all services being delivered by means of IP packets.

Does the mobile future look the same? Of course ultimately we are going to end up with a high speed mobile, pure IP-based network. So in the mobile world, all the services will be delivered over-IP as well. So, in the long run, there is no advantage of being a mobile operator? Yes, there is. What are the items you carry with you most of the time? Some cash, a mobile phone and probably some credit cards. Three items. Wouldn’t you prefer just one? It is easy to imagine cash and credit cards merging into one smart wallet. In many countries this has already happened. I remember being in Iceland in 1993 and buying even newspapers with plastics… But how to merge a phone and a card? Well… I do not see how I could talk (or listen) to my credit card. It is more natural to use the phone as something you pay with, instead of a card you talk to… Anyway this merger process is underway as well. Premium voice and premium SMSes are already used to pay for some services (mostly entertainment services). You can get an access to a premium web page or pay your parking fee by sending an SMS. In Munich (Germany) you can rent a bike. The bikes are parked around the city, each having its own phone number. You “dial a bike”, it unlocks itself while putting a charge on your phone bill. Yes – converged bill. Isn’t it nice? Pay for taxis, restaurants, groceries and have them on your phone bill? Why not? If your phone becomes your cash / credit card, then your phone bill should be your universal bill. Imagine T-Mobile merging with Citibank. Isn’t it a natural fit?

In many developing countries this has already happened, like in Angola the mobile phone bill is already the only bill people get. And the credit rating with the mobile operator is the only rating available, as there are practically no banks… I strongly believe this trend will continue, as this is very natural way of progress. I simply want my phone or teleputer to be my universal wallet. And I want just one bill. And more, I want my bank that becomes my mobile company to authenticate me. They know almost all about me, so why wouldn’t they become a shared trusted root in an authentication scheme? I trust Citibank. Citibank knows me and trusts me. You trust Citibank. So when there is a potential transaction between you and me, you can trust me, provided Citibank tells you they trust me. Authentication services. That is what I would love to have provided from my mobile operator. Just imagine how many scenarios this enables. Almost any transaction in any business can be supervised by the federated authentication services of mobile operators. Car rental? The rental company turns the charge request to their mobile/bank company (BarclaysHutchinson?). BarclaysHutchinson turns to CiT-Mobile who then checks the rental fee against my credit limit, I get the confirmation prompt on my phone, enter my PIN to confirm, and the rental fee is added to my phone err... universal bill. Isn’t that natural? You bet… Same scenario with logging at the hotel or purchasing stocks or logging into your secure email account.

The mobile operators have wonderful technology in place to authenticate you. Be your universal electronic passport (something Microsoft tried to do a couple of years ago). Unfortunately most people do not trust Microsoft and the like. But they do trust their phones and they would feel secure accessing their accounts from any public internet kiosks, provided the authentication would run through their mobiles (pin entry) instead of having to punch a password on a keyboard with an unknown origin (with a possible keystroke logger inside…). Don’t know about yourself, but I would gladly shell a dollar or two a month, if my mobile company gave me that service.