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Travel proves to me cloud Is not a solution for all

silroc

silroc

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 17, 2010
383
18
I travel weekly with the iPad and love it.

But airport connections I see are slow (I guess overloaded) and same for my hotel wifi. I tried to watch hob and abc but absolutely no go. Pandora was ok but not like using iPod app....

So love the cloud idea but the infrastructure outside of the hone is just not adequate in my humble opinion. As long as we still have choice of big storage in the future then I am ok.
 
The issue is less the cloud and more the networking options available to the general public. Airport and hotel wifi systems were initially installed with the business user in mind, so they can get online, check their e-mail, do a little work, and disconnect. They definitely weren't put in for streaming media purposes.

Your best bet is to upgrade to a 3G ipad or use your phone as a hotspot (most smartphone include this as an option at this point).
 
DeaconGraves said:
Your best bet is to upgrade to a 3G ipad or use your phone as a hotspot (most smartphone include this as an option at this point).
Click to expand...

The OP brings up a valid point: I too have found the performance of many public WiFi zones to be disappointing and unreliable. Airports and hotels being among the biggest offenders.

Your point regarding 3G bears thinking about. Right now, 3G may very well offer the best combination of speed and reliability. But I would be concerned about the future.

Simply put, 3G (and 4G) bandwidth is essentially finite. Wifi capacity ISN'T. Which is one reason carriers like ATT and Verizon are putting public WiFi zones their mobile subscribers can access in areas with high data usage (New York's Times Square, etc.)

There is something of a horse race between mobile data capacity and usage going on right now. So far, the telecoms have been able to keep pace. But I think that another two or three years will see some real challenges arise for mobile data providers keeping up with demand. The radio spectrum simply was never designed to let a couple of billion people stream live video to their mobile phones simultaneously.
 
vrDrew said:
The OP brings up a valid point: I too have found the performance of many public WiFi zones to be disappointing and unreliable. Airports and hotels being among the biggest offenders.
Click to expand...

more importantly, you should find that they are very insecure.
 
vrDrew said:
The radio spectrum simply was never designed to let a couple of billion people stream live video to their mobile phones simultaneously.
Click to expand...

I've always thought about this. When i first saw the little 3G logo, it was on a color dumb phone a couple of years before the iphone. It was used for nothing more than crappy watered down mobile "internet". Today we're using that very same connection for full internet access and streaming media. This can't end well!
 
And even if you have great access to the web, there is no guarantee the cloud services you want will be available all the time. Just read google tech news to see how many services are "temporarily down" thanks to hackers or upgrade failures or hardware failure, etc...
 
jenzjen said:
Or just get a mobile broadband device and back to the cloud you go
Click to expand...

Yes but I guess what I am saying is that storage is probably cheaper than a long term 3G subscription.. I hope to have that choice in the future.....
 
Hotels are definitely their own worst enemy.

I stayed at one in Houston a couple of months ago (one of the selling points being the WiFi). It was DOA, no one knew it was down or how to fix it. I ended up connecting, with the iPad, to the hotel next door.
 
silroc said:
Yes but I guess what I am saying is that storage is probably cheaper than a long term 3G subscription.. I hope to have that choice in the future.....
Click to expand...

True, but if you travel frequently, the monthly fee for 4g broadband more than pays for itself. Time is money in my line of work.
 
jenzjen said:
True, but if you travel frequently, the monthly fee for 4g broadband more than pays for itself. Time is money in my line of work.
Click to expand...

The best option I have found for unlimited on 3g and 4g (being the only unlimited 3g fallback option I could find) was Road Runner Mobile. If you are in an area serviced by Time Warner Cable (and maybe not, as you can pay 10.00 more if you arent a cable customer) and can afford 50-60 usd a month then check out http://www.yourtwc.com/mobile , I just signed up with them and got the option for 39.99 for 3 months BUT it gets you a two year contract.

I have been using it with my iPad WiFi and even my laptop and I love it! I had to do this because with AT&T cracking down on tethering (I had unlimited data) I didn't want to risk it even though I never got the dreaded sms of death.

I now dropped my iPhone and use a dumb phone and a iPod and iPad with the mobile device to get the same I did with my iPhone but this time no one complains I use data for tethering and threatens to charge more.
 
Reason that public wifi sucks so much these days is become about to each connection there are about a million retards streaming Netflix or Pandora.

This is the exact reason I am happy with 3G data limits, keeps the air clear of said anti-social greedy pigs.

I have global unlimited 3G via my work and I'm happy with it and use it responsibly.
 
Xeperu said:
Reason that public wifi sucks so much these days is become about to each connection there are about a million retards streaming Netflix or Pandora.
Click to expand...

You pay for it, you can use it, that's the deal. If a public Wifi provider doesn't have the capacity to cater for a x-number of users, then they shouldn't be serving a x-number of users. Also, there's nothing stopping these providers from capping speeds for high-bandwidth users. Sounds like you'd rather blame users than money-hungry providers for some reason.
 
AdrianK said:
You pay for it, you can use it, that's the deal. If a public Wifi provider doesn't have the capacity to cater for a x-number of users, then they shouldn't be serving a x-number of users. Also, there's nothing stopping these providers from capping speeds for high-bandwidth users. Sounds like you'd rather blame users than money-hungry providers for some reason.
Click to expand...

I think your post is off unless I misread its intent.

You pay for it, you can use it, sure, but there is always a business model behind the scenes. No one has a money tree. The providers provide what the business model supports.

I don't see how it is realistic to expect these providers to lay enough infrastructure to support 100s concurrent netflix users while still only charging $10/session.
 
I think we will see the same issues we did when the iPhone first came out and they did not allow applications yet, just web 2.0 apps. It always seemed when I needed something like a shopping list I had no coverage in the store so it was useless.
 
Also, cloud computing on cruise ship or travelling internationally - nope. I still feel violated after paying $150 for so-called "internet" aboard Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas.
 
The idea of the cloud being stupid proves to me that the cloud isn't a good solution for pretty much anyone.

A 500 gig laptop drive being under 100 bucks assures me that the cloud isn't a good solution for pretty much anyone.
 
AdrianK said:
You pay for it, you can use it, that's the deal. If a public Wifi provider doesn't have the capacity to cater for a x-number of users, then they shouldn't be serving a x-number of users. Also, there's nothing stopping these providers from capping speeds for high-bandwidth users. Sounds like you'd rather blame users than money-hungry providers for some reason.
Click to expand...

The service charges are somewhat reasonable considering the convenience.
However from my experience sometimes the login is frustrating, connections tend to be reset requiring a new session.
At one of the Toyota dealers I go to limit data usage to 100meg.

The blame the user is the most prevalent argument for the lack of initiative of the service providers.
Can providers increase capacity of there networks to support cloud services?
I think they can but will they make the investment or continue to laugh at their customers blame other customers for using to data connections to access services or data.
 
It's not so much that the cloud is not a solution, but rather that those hotspots aren't prepared for cloud usage yet. Which is understandable considering many airport and hotel WiFi spots are quite primitive.

I have a feeling that if cloud-based media storage takes off, the options for larger bandwidths and more portable connectivity are pushed to grow.
 
jenzjen said:
Or just get a mobile broadband device and back to the cloud you go
Click to expand...

Clearly someone who never travels abroad then?

That, or you don't mind paying $1/MB for data when you're roaming outside of your home country? Or you don't mind the faff of having to go trawling around the local shops looking for a local PAYG SIM card to use while you're on holiday, then set it up, get it working, etc.

iPhones and iPads are meant to be used on-the-go. What's the point if you can't (cost effectively) use it outside of your home country? Or on the train (where signal can be very intermittent as you go through cuttings and tunnels)? Or on a plane (where you can't use 3G, wifi, etc)?

The world is a looooong way from having easy, cheap, always-available access to the internet. Yes you can get it regularly enough to be pretty-much always in touch with email and news. But if you're going to rely on it for streaming media constantly, then we're not there yet.

David
 
I have to laugh at all these youngsters who are embracing "the cloud" as if it is new and revolutionary. Some of us old dinosaurs remember the first iteration of the cloud... mainframe computing. We also remember the limitations and deficiencies of that framework.

I may use the cloud for disposable, non-essential purposes, but I'm not going "back to the future". ;)
 
I personally prefer to have everyone of mine with me, at all times.

I'll gladly upgrade my 500GB HD inside my MBP to a 1TB instead of moving anything to the cloud. (I'm at -100GB's left, so it'll be time to upgrade soon)

Wanting the new iPad2, I'm considering opting for the 32GB rather than the 16GB. This way I'll have a greater amount of movies and documents on hand, as opposed to having to find a WiFi connection to access DropBox.

Either way, WiFi is readily available in the U.S. It was China that WiFi was hard to come by and in that situation i'd have no choice but to opt for a 64GB iPad.

Should I need a file, WiFi is easily present at my University (Campus Wide), Mcdonalds, StarBucks and an array of open networks homes simply don't lock down.

But I think it all depends what kind of user you are. If you're a teenage kid simply wanting to access games, then I could personally care less. But if you're moving from A to B for business, then there is a certain importance and frustration that these iOS devices have sparked regarding cloud computing and needing you files at hand, at any given moment.
 
HappyDude20 said:
If you're a teenage kid simply wanting to access games, then I could personally care less.
Click to expand...

Wait, so how much are you caring in this scenario? You're implying you care about teenage kids who only want to access games, but how much do you care about them?
 
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