National Broadbast Access - How to get it to work in a car

[MRoberto]

Is there any current technology out yet that would allow a wireless mobile device to maintain an active internet connection while say, driving in a car?

Lets talk about a city where the coverage service should be strong.

Is it possible to lets say stream media to a device on the go?

What would it take to make this possible.

I want to connect a wireless device to an internet connection, where you would login to a secure account and then interface with media to be streamed directly to the device.....

 

[ncotton]

This is possible in cities that have the infrastructure to do this. I think Oxford and Sheffield have implemented it. Preston certanly have (only in the town centre spreading out past the uni campus)and were the first to do so. However, this is not open access, it is subscription based. You need no special device or hardware just a standard 802.11b/g card. The APs are authenticated on a session with MAC identification with a single broadcasting DNS. So even roaming between different APs, you should retain your connection.
However, the natue of APs means that there is a slow authentication process ( a couple of seconds), so for this to work, you have to have automatic connection on.
I dont think it would work to well, as everytime you pick up a new AP (on the same city network), or should I say, an AP receives your broadcast, it needs to authenticate it against its session host server, so that when you drift into the area where you are being served by the new AP, rather than the old one, you should see seemless conection without any drop (apart from any normal attenuation, as most cards will create a direct connection to which ever sources the strongest signal for the currently connected network.

HOWEVER.
If you are talking about driving around, (depending on 1, the insulation in your car, unless you install a EM aerial for this WiFi device) and 2, the speed you are driving and 3, proximity to the APs) would all vary your connection.

For example **NB at Bottom**, if you run a broadcast scan, even on a train...you will pick up lots of unsecure networks that you would normally be able to connect to, however, due to the connectivity technique used above, on the authentication to the best serving AP, you would not be able to connect, as your signal on connection would be being lost to quickly, before authentication was acheived, but if you do it when you are stopped at the station, you now be able to connect.

!!NB!!
<QUOTE DISCLAIMER>This post does not justify network scanning or illegal access to private networks.
</QUOTE>

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant