Re: "Safe" cell phone WiFi capabilities?

On 5/20/2024 4:02 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:

On 2024-05-17, Don Y wrote:

On 5/17/2024 5:55 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:

On 2024-05-17, Don Y wrote:

For "nominal" cell phones (i.e., taking into consideration
that not ever subscriber buys The Latest and Greatest),
what's the "base" WiFi capability one would feel comfortable
assuming?  ac?  ax?

>
Assuming you're limiting the question to the set of cellphones that
actually implement wifi, 802.11b ... but what are you *REALLY* trying to
ask for?

>
There are several different "generations" of WiFi, each with
different effective (data) bandwidths.
>
The most commonly referenced include:  802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g,
802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11ax and, most recently, 802.11be.  The

 It's almost like that list is ... all of the options.
 

[Note that n is a ~2008 era technology while ac is ~2015
and ax is ~2020.  Does this suggest that any phone made
"within the last 5 years" -- an interval Martin suggests
should cover "most" phones now in use -- should be "ax"?]

 No. /FLAGSHIP/ models certainly have a high chance of supporting
802.11ax, but that doesn't mean "any" phone.
 Again, what are you *REALLY* trying to ascertain here?

I am trying to figure out what the "basic" WiFi capabilities
of "the vast majority" of cell phones currently in use are
likely to be.
Martin suggests phones have a useful life of 5 years.
If so, the majority of phones currently in use were
likely designed long after 802.11a/b (1999), g (2003),
n (2008), ac (2014) and even ax (2019).
If a phone does NOT support WiFi (perhaps some of the
"closed" markets?), then it has no impact on the data.

The most basic support is still 802.11b; and that'll probably be kind of
"forever" (at least until 2.4 GHz is completely abandoned), same as how
10mbit is still the most basic ethernet-over-twisted-pair support.

But, in practice, most phones support something more capable
than 802.11b -- just like most enets support something more
capable than 10BaseT/2.
Designing for the lowest POSSIBLE vs. LIKELY means unnecessarily
limiting the capabilities that you can exploit.
[would you design an enet device that ONLY expected to be capable
of accessing 10mb bandwidth]