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From: Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: "Safe" cell phone WiFi capabilities?
Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 04:23:14 -0700
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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]