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WI-FI versus BLUETOOTH

I have just setup a wireless network in my home. Compared to bluetooth it is absolutley brilliant, I have fast internet on my laptop downstairs, wifi card in ipaq working great and it was a doddle to install, whereas bluetooth presents nightmares to configure, wont work with lots of devices, is short range and very slow. For anybody who is in 2 minds I would suggest wireless is the best by far in all ways.

Hi,
Apologies if I misunderstood you, but I think you missed the point of Bluetooth/WiFi. They really are completely different technologies.
Bluetooth is designed to be short range and lower power and to be able to communicate a multitude of devices wirelessly (i.e. keyboards, mice, GPS, headsets as well as forming mini networks). It's also not really designed to be "high speed" as in the same sort of levels of WiFi.
WiFi on the other hand is ONLY for networking and compared to Bluetooth it IS much faster as you've realised and it is designed for bigger distances, but the power drain is also considerably more as well.
That's why your device has both technologies, so that you can choose which method suits you best. Personally I use the WiFi for networking, but the Bluetooth for talking to my GPS and Handsfree. I've ran a Bluetooth network before and found them quite stable (driver/firmware versions will assist here) and they're okay in an emergency, but they're really not that speedy at all.

So wifi is limited in its capabilities? So no chance of wireless gps or wireless headsets for phones?

I wouldn't say it's limited. Wireless Fidelity is wireless networking. That's what it was designed for and that's what it does.
You do get network webcams as well as network printers etc which could directly or indirectly take advantage of WiFi, but that's about as diverse as I think it goes and even then it's not really WiFi doing the work. The devices themselves have built in network cards.
Technically you could have a headset with a built in network card/wireless tranceiver, but I think since they can already do that with Bluetooth in very small sizes/low power/low cost... I can't see a WiFi implementation happening anytime soon, if ever. More likely it'll skip WiFi and that sort of thing will go in whatever wireless technology comes out next.
But aside from possibly a headset with longer range and faster networking, what else would you want to use with a range more than 10m or needs faster speeds?
I suspect mobile phones will start including 100m Bluetooth when they work out how to get the power down, but I don't believe that'll increase the speeds. But hey I didn't write/design the spec, so who knows?

I was also quite surprised and pleased by the simplicity of setting the wireless network, on the desktop I took about 1 minute, no added software, just a couple of clicks and a reboot, on the laptop I installed the software, plugged in the card and it immediately found the network and asked me politely if I would like to use it, brilliant implementation of a superb system. I also saw an advert for a long distance network connection, 3 miles I think, that would be a cheap way of all your family using a single high speed broadband connection in the same town.

The answer is simple:
Can you use high speed WIFI for more than 3 hours with any PPC with standard battery? BT does that well.
You should compensate the high speed of connection and simplicity in configuration (not very sure about this) to the longer usage time.

Change WiFi transmit power in WinMo ?

Hi!
I have an HTC Diamond, and i'd like to extend battery life when using the WiFi network.
In my Nokia N79 (With Symbian S60 3rd Ed FP2) i can set the transmit power to 100 mW, 10 mW, or 4 mW.
And that of course extend battery life.
Why i'm asking this ? Because the PushMail solution in my company works with a propietary VPN Client, and can use 3G or WiFi, and being in the office, i prefer WiFi connection.
Can i set up that transmit power ? Perhaps in the registry ?
I'm NOT talking about Stand-By configurations in Power Management.
Specifically i'm speaking in change the transmit power of the WiFi.
Regards
Mac

doubt the qualcom cpu which control wifi, gps, 3g & bluetooth have their settings for such things in software

Thanks for the reply!
Do you know what chipset has that control ?
I want to give WinMo an other try, but, i had more battery life with Nokia, and THE change was modify the WiFi transmit power....
Regards
Mac

"Do you know what chipset has that control ?"
yes as I state all the features I listed are qualcomm and directly integrated into the cpu of the pda

Perhaps my question was not clear enough.
If i'd like to buy a device who had that transmit power control feature, and of course it's based in the chipset feature...
Do you know what device should be ?
Regards
Mac

Orange stated i can connect my phone to home wifi to boost signal? Anyone?

is this utter rubbish or what they told my misses if she buys the touch 3g it will connect ot out home wifi and boost signal as we have a low signal reception on orange in our area can anyone explain this to me and how my rhodium can do this also?

it wont boost your signal but obviously you will be able to suft the internet at much higher speeds just switch on your wifi in settings, it should give you a list of availible routers, pick yours, enter the wep key and your up and running

on that note I wonder how hard it would be to hack a, say, DD-WRT firmware set of routers to allow a repeater over the internet (for non tmobile users and their wifi calling! GRR)
I would love to modify a wifi router to catch CDMA/GSM instead of broadcast 802.11, then set it up VPN style to connect to another router that then broadcasts the signal instead of 802.11 (yes i know repeaters exist, but im talking miles away)
wow, first post here and I made myself a winter project! I have plenty of friends who would love to test it with me too ^^
now to avoid the red tape!

What they are talking about is UMA (google it for details) which basically allows you to route GSM traffic over an Internet connection via WiFi.
It's supported on Blackberries, some non-smart-phones (dumb phones), and the touch 3G. It's not supported on any of the other WM or Android devices.
Maybe someone on here can mod up a ROM for the rhodium to support this? It would need the radio from an Orange build of the Touch 3G. There may be other aspects to this as well.

yep the dude who likes trees is right - UMA is only supported on certain phones - one model of nokia, most blackberries and one model of HTC device - The Touch 3G. As far as I was aware though you need an Orange Livebox in order for it to work (Orange's broadband router).
It seems to work as I have a number of users using it at home with work provided phones (mainly crackberries) in areas of no orange reception- but from what I've heard in terms of feedback they're Orange Livebox isn't that great at range and also picks up allot of interference (one user regularly complains it keeps dropping connection).

thanks everyone that was what i thought. i will just have to get a nice ilegal orange gsm repeater on ebay then

My work blackberry works UMA over any wireless network that I have connected to, none of them are orange boxes or orange broadband.
At work we have mostly BT broadband with various routers and wifi access points - Draytek, cisco, dlink, 2wire from bt and at home I have talktalk with huawei and linksys access points.
Just wish I could get uma for other win mobile.
MG

matttytn2 said:
is this utter rubbish or what they told my misses if she buys the touch 3g it will connect ot out home wifi and boost signal as we have a low signal reception on orange in our area can anyone explain this to me and how my rhodium can do this also?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not technically correct, but might in effect be true if your phone supports UMA. This effectively routes a GSM call over your WiFi/ADSL and then via internet in Orange's circuit-switched core network. As a result if you previously could not make calls in your home on GSM, magically you now will be able to when within range of your router. They market the service as Unik or Unyk phone.

radiohead319 said:
It's not technically correct, but might in effect be true if your phone supports UMA. This effectively routes a GSM call over your WiFi/ADSL and then via internet in Orange's circuit-switched core network. As a result if you previously could not make calls in your home on GSM, magically you now will be able to when within range of your router. They market the service as Unik or Unyk phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the way the Orange UK Unyk/Unik service does not need an Orange Livebox or ISP to work - it is the "open ISP" variety of UMA

[Q] Determine best Network Signal

Hi all,
I'm looking to find or write a solution that will display the signal strength of each gsm network (carrier) in a given area.
From the research I've done, I believe it is possible to determine this information by interpreting the BCCH (Broadcast Control Channel) info from each of the surrounding cells, which contains such things as as the signal level, cell id and mobile network code.
Does anyone here know if it is possible to do this via RIL on winmo / ce devices or if there is an existing application that does this. I've looked at the RILCELLTOWERINFO structure on MSDN but this seems to only supply info for the currently connected cell.
I have looked at a HTC application called fieldtest.exe which seems to display signal levels of up to 6 cells, but seem to identify the network code.
Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

WiFi is split into 13 channels - they are used to reduce interference with other routers and devices using the same spectrum. Channel can be set manually in a router but is often chosen automatically by the router. The channels themselves overlap; e.g. channel 7 will still intefere with channels +/- 5 channels. Note that not all channels are licensed in all regions of the world so you may only see (say) 11 channels on your router.
What it sounds like you are looking for is the signal to noise or even more general "quality" on any given channel - i.e. finding out which channel would be best for a specific installation. Although the various metrics that would allow you to compute this value are available at the hardware interface, the iPhone networking API does not expose them. You could investigate using a jailbroken iPhone and corresponding devkit or switching your app to the destop.
Steve

Sorry, I probably didn't make it clear, but I'm actually referring to GSM as used by cellphones rather than WiFi.
Any ideas?

[Q] Call Phones Directly via Cell Network Transmitter?

Since all phones communicate via various cell network bands..that means they have a transmitter and receiver for those frequencies.
Would it be possible, for two phones using the same frequency, in a remote location ( a cruise ship, or field ) to communicate directly at some distance without the need for a Cell Network?
You wouldn't be able to call specific people. It would act as a radio.
Is such a thing possible?