Friday Set-Straights: Recent-Past Post Updates

To wrap up the week, and further extending the theme of my prior post, I thought I’d pass along some follow-ups on other recent writeups. First off, I’d like to give a shout-out to the commenters on Wednesday’s Novatel Wireless MiFi piece. Here’s what ‘anonymous’ had to say:

Brian,
Unlike HSPA, DORA uses a completely independent 1.25Mhz channel from the 1xRTT 1.25Mhz voice channel. Since there is no voice traffic on the DORA channel, it is unlikely that you are seeing the base station “drop data connections in order to keep customers’ conversations going.”

Thanks, ‘anonymous’ for your informative feedback (for anyone else who was initially confused, DORA is shorthand for EV-DO Revision A). I had a sneaking suspicion that EV-DO data services didn’t share spectrum with CDMA voice and prior-generation 1xRTT data traffic; this explains, for example, why the Verizon/Samsung Network Extender femtocell supports 1xRTT but not EV-DO. However, my (perhaps flawed) understanding is that spectrum coexistence is only one of several reasons why a cellular base station might choose to prioritize more efficient voice (and lucrative text messaging, of course) services over data. Other motivations include limited intra-base station processing resources and limited backhaul bandwidth between the base station and the provider’s wired backbone.

Next, here are the unedited thoughts of ‘Just Me’:

I guess I’m gona ask a stupid question, but since that pic doesn’t give much real information about the only real useful information is “disconnected”, here goes. Are you sure these disconnections are actually a true problem with the phone network and not lets say a qweerk of the cellular router? It maybe that when you are writing an article, burning a cd, yapping on the phone, etc. you not sending or receiving anything threw the router, there may be a “feature” to disconect the router from the cell network(Maybe a left over from when people payed like a $1 a minite for a cellular data connection). I would guess if this were the case, there could be an option to change the “time out”. There also may be an option to automatically reconnect to the cell network that you need to set. If there is no option to change these settings then maybe you could run a tiny back ground app that sends and receives something over the connection, which may keep it open. Like lets say this app goes out and checks a web site for updates every so often, or downloads a small file, or whatever. (their are plug-in’s for Firefox to do these kinds of things.)

Thanks, also, to grammatically-challenged ‘Just Me’. After more experimentation, you may indeed be spot-on. While sitting in the Volvo dealer’s waiting room waiting for the completion of my car’s 15,000 mile maintenance session yesterday morning, I spent more time with the MiFi. A closer inspection of its web browser-based setup and status screens informed me that just prior to entering ‘disconnected’ mode, it would often transition into an interim ‘dormant’ state. I’ve seen similar behavior before with cellular data PC Cards, tethered phones and USB adapters I’ve used in the past.

Unfortunately, while the presumed intent here is to free up precious cellular service resources (IP addresses, processing horsepower, memory, etc) while any particular client is not using them, the MiFi would sometimes migrate to ‘dormant’ (and from there to ‘disconnected’) while Internet accesses were in process! And sometimes, even if its transition into these standby modes was for valid reasons, the MiFi refused to automatically reconnect to the network the next time I wanted to go back online. I’m not sure if the root of the issue is Novatel Wireless’s hardware and/or software, Verizon’s service, or some combination of the two provider’s problems, but it sure is irritating. And unfortunately, there seems to be no way to override this behavior, save (as I’ve done in the past) creating a loop routine that runs in the background on my computer and periodically ‘pings’ yahoo.com or some other site in order to prevent it.

Switching gears to laptops, Apple’s had my MacBook Air in for repair for two weeks and two days now, but the online status page for my particular case ID number still reports that the service is on hold pending the arrival of a replacement HDD. To say I’m not impressed would be something of an understatement. Fortunately, the SSD-augmented MacBook surrogate is still humming along, albeit with one particularly baffling networking-related hiccup which I’ve noticed both here at my friend’s house in S. California and earlier back in Truckee.

I should remind you up-front, although long-time readers may already remember, that this particular first-generation system (i.e. MacBook1,1) came from the factory with only built-in 802.11a/b/g support; Quickertek upgraded it to 802.11n cognizance for me via an Apple-branded module from Small Dog Electronics. To convince Mac OS 10.4 to identify it as Apple hardware and unlock its 802.11n capabilities, however, required that I first install a utility which came bundled with the company’s routers.

Unfortunately, this workaround doesn’t seem to work with OS 10.5; the Apple MA688Z/B module remains still identified in System Profiler as a ‘Third Party Wireless Card’:

And its identity in Network Utility is similarly obscure (note that in this particular case it’s not getting a DHCP assignment from the router and is therefore reporting a self-assigned IP address):

It’ll mate to a 5 GHz beacon coming from a router or access point just fine for the first few hours each day, but LAN and WAN accesses will inevitably slow, eventually to completely cease shortly thereafter, at which point it’ll fade away from the network. It’ll subsequently still detect 5 GHz transmitters, I can still connect to them (complete with successful encryption handshakes), and I can sometimes even still get DHCP assignments. But the MacBook will no longer be able to ’see’ other LAN or WAN resources, and it’ll also disappear from their view.

Here’s what’s really baffling; it’ll mate up with 2.4 GHz 802.11g access points and routers just fine all day long, even after its 5 GHz cognizance is compromised. If I reboot it or the router it’s connected to, its 5 GHz facilities will briefly be restored. And after I put it in standby overnight, it’ll work just fine over 5 GHz 802.11n again for several hours the next day. I’ve been able to reliably recreate this scenario multiple times using both my Apple Airport Extreme ‘N’ router and my friend’s simultaneous dual-band Time Capsule. Quickertek sells a newer version of the module, which I may try upgrading to as a potential means of solving the problem. Otherwise, if I don’t come up with a software solution, I may need to downgrade to the original 802.11a/b/g module or back to Mac OS 10.4.

Some brief LCD TV thoughts; the new LG Electronics display showed up shortly before I left for SIGGRAPH, so I haven’t had much time to play with it. But it showed up fully functional and so far I’m quite impressed with its visual quality; I can’t yet report whether or not it has any dead pixels. It’s a little bit thicker than a LED backlight-based alternative might be, and I’m still waiting on a response from LG’s press relations team on whether its 120 Hz refresh capabilities will translate to 3-D glasses compatibility at some point down the road (in the absence of official feedback, I’m guessing the answer’s ‘no’). But considering the substantial incremental price tag that I would have paid for either feature upgrade, not to mention both in the same package, I’m so far pleased with what I got.

And finally, for those of you who like me are fans of MediaMall Technologies’ PlayOn, here’s a hint; before attempting to stream Netflix content to a TV-tethered media adapter, get it playing on the PC-as-PlayOn server first. I forgot to pack my Xbox 360 memory module containing my Xbox Live Gold account details prior to traveling to spend some time with my friend, so she and I are using PlayOn as a Netflix Watch Instantly intermediary versus natively accessing the content from the game console. I couldn’t figure out why an X-Files episode wouldn’t play through PlayOn until I tried watching it directly on her laptop and realized that Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin was awaiting configuration feedback before it would proceed.

Happy weekend, all.