- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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“Make do” with ethernet? Charlie Brown, ethernet is the superior networking interface. People “make do” with wifi.
I’m enjoying ethernet on my phone too
I can tell that you’re being sarcastic. But if I’m playing ranked match on my phone, it’s always with an Ethernet dongle. Way more reliable and definitely lower latency.
People actually play competitive games in their phone? I thought that was just marketing spin so apple didn’t have to put graphics cards in their macs
It’s hilarious that you insist on the ethernet cable but not an actual computer.
I don’t have a gaming computer (i7 3770K with integrated graphics from 2012)
You don’t get cellular data? Okay, sure it’s faster for that too.
Problem solved i guess, that’s progression.
lol your comment made people salty for some reason
It’s absolutely making do. Having to plug an Ethernet cable in every time you take your laptop to someone else’s office, break room or conference room simply doesn’t work. Offices aren’t designed for it.
That’s when you make do with WiFi.
You do know that laptops no longer even come with those Ethernet ports, right?
You do know that most places use docking stations that connect laptops to multiple screens and… you guessed it… ethernet.
My last job was with a Fortune 100 technical company in a sales position. No one used a docking station and no one bothered with an Ethernet cable. Neither did any of the customers we dealt with. People with desktop computers were wired up but most everyone else used wifi all the time.
Not my last job with a Fortune 100 company. Nearly all of us used wifi all the time. Our engineering and software development groups did use desktop computers with Gig E though.
Not my last job with a Fortune 100 company.
Sorry to hear your company doesn’t care about productivity.
We get a second screen, power, and stable internet connection via docking stations.
to be fair, they did say sales
Sorry to hear your company doesn’t care about productivity.
My company produces networking equipment and actually knows how to implement reliable wireless and wired networks. If your company’s wifi network is unstable perhaps hiring a competent network design and implementation company would have been more cost effective than throwing more equipment at the problem.
it’s called a “dongle” and it’s named after a guy named don. No srs look it up.
Lordy, I ain’t never heard about one of them before. You’re a genius!
Now look around your office and see how many people are using them. There’s not a single person in my sales office, whether sales or engineering that bothers with a dongle because we actually have a well designed, fast wifi network. It’s called “reliability” and you and your company should look that up.
From the responses here it sounds like many companies need to do the same.
Yeah if you are forced to deal with a shitty Apple
Welcome to the future! Standard everywhere.
Long time since you bought a laptop, or even looked at them? Even most Dell and Thinkpad mobile workstations no longer include an Ethernet port.
They include USB-C and most docking stations have… ethernet.
And in the offices I worked in nobody had a docking station. They aren’t everywhere.
Conference rooms, yes. Break rokms, yes. Offices? No. Use a docking station? Are you working solely from your laptop screen or do you dock and use monitors mouse and keyboard? Generally, there’s ethernet attached, too.
Wireless sucks. Wired is always better.
Just gonna ignore those real-world examples and insist on fantasy land, eh?
Wireless is always better than no connection at all if you need a connection and you’re not wired.
Can’t realistically plug your phone into the wall every time you want to use the internet
The whole point of a mobile phone is that it’s mobile
Ok Zoomer.
We’re talking about offices where people generally use laptops for work. Why are you mentioning mobiles?
What if I want to move my laptop around the office, say for example to make a presentation, or work in a different area? If I’m just working on some documents online, I don’t need a fast connection, just 30-50Mbit is plenty enough for pretty much everything, including video calls etc
And what you’re telling me you never use a mobile at work? You still need a signal to make/receive regular phone calls
That’s true, which is why the article mentions one of the things googlers are doing is using their phone as a hotspot.
Y’see the phone gets it’s internet from the cell tower. It then passes the internet to the laptop via a local (i.e. 2 feet) wifi or bluetooth connection.
That’s an entirely different thing than enterprise-wide wifi. And if the building was blocking cell phone signals - well, first of all I’d be impressed, and secondly they would tear it down.
Moan and groan all you like, it doesn’t change the fact that wireless is almost always an option and wired is almost never an option.
Even desktop PCs come with wifi adapters. Finding a laptop with an Ethernet port is damn near impossible.
Don’t most of (maybe all) dell and lenovo laptops come with ethernet ports by default ?
And nowadays, with thunderbolt docking stations, you have more or less every connection available anyway.Don’t most of (maybe all) dell and lenovo laptops come with ethernet ports by default ?
Nope. Ethernet ports are gone.
If ethernet is not an option, you’re just wasting time. Ethernet-to-USB dongles are cheap and plentiful.
It’s crazy that people with no experience with it have no idea why anyone would want to fuss with a direct wired connection when it’s objectively faster and more stable in every metric possible.
Assumptions, assumptions… My company is a communications company and actually produces networking equipment. Almost no one uses Ethernet because we have the knowledge and experience to implement reliable wifi. Perhaps your company should hire us since they’ve done such a bad job with their own implementation.
Conference rooms should have ethernet connected to the USB-C dongle that’s attached to the TV and the Jabra or whatever alternative you use.
Wouldn’t want to take my laptop to the break room, I go there to take a break from work, not continue it in a different setting.
I’ll agree on going to someone else’s office, or using your laptop in a meeting where someone else is connected up, but that’s where Wi-Fi works as the back-up.
Lol! One Ethernet cable in a conference room? What if someone else is using it? Next you’ll proudly state that you carry an Ethernet switch everywhere you go. But, you be you.
I just said wifi works as the backup solution if you’re not the one presenting. If you ARE the one presenting, wouldn’t you want to have a more stable connection?
Yes, but tell that again when you and 19 other people bring your laptop to a conference room and try to login on the network at the same time.
Different things have different strengths, and losing one of those things means your experience will be subpar.
So, I haven’t worked in IT in a couple decades, but back in the late '90s/ early '00s, all the conference tables at the companies I worked for, had Ethernet ports built into the table towards the center, and a switch mounted under the table so that everyone could just plug in. Did they stop making those tables once WiFi became ubiquitous?
Yes, they stopped. The ports were never sufficient, people always wanted to move the table around, and the cables and connectors in the table were always breaking.
Besides, there are always people far from the table.
It’s true, they used to be more available and then they stopped making those tables for those reasons (and they were more expensive).
Yes, in a conference room setting with more than 3 people it’s better to have wifi, no disagreement there. In google’s case here it sounds like they’d bring a mobile hotspot in so everyone could see the documents together, which is not ideal but would work.
Still, they’d have ethernet for the video sharing so they could just put a router in each conference room (a huge pain to admin, but - it’s google) and everyone gets wifi in the conference room and no one is very slightly inconvenienced.
OR - y’know. Bring back the ethernet. Werd.
What do they think their precious wifi routers plug into?
An actual cloud?
When it rains are they terrified of losing their data?
And a lot of people do. Cellular and satellite internet is excellent for rural and certain business use cases. I have gigabit fiber, and I’m considering one of those in case the Internet goes out if fiber is hit or if we lose utility power (I have a battery backup system).
Yes. Those folks are scared when it rains too hard. The connection does become more unstable.
I still acknowledge that your point is valid for everyone else however.
I was just making a cartoonish joke about clouds leaking.
Wasnt thinking rain fade lol.
I guess they’ll have to cancel their building like they cancel everything else they do.
They have to build it first and then use it for a few months and then demolish it
First they have to kick out the people who were enjoying it
That’s the most fun part! We know you have been enjoying your new office and benefits (because we read your email), but please note in two months we will be discontinuing a this. We are releasing a new service you might want to try though, Google unemployment!
Didn’t forget renaming
Nah, they’ll just add a chat app. Then destroy it.
But unlike a lot of the other products they cancel, I’ll have actually known that this existed first.
This is why Wi-Fi is annoying, I’ll take a wired connection over Wi-Fi any day.
I’m just picturing you walking around a room on your phone with an Ethernet adapter and cable hanging out all over the place
This is how phones used to work!!! The cable was all spirally and you could get really long ones!
“Hold on, I need to move to the office on the other wing.” Cables everywhere.
Those things were always a twisted mess hahaha
Like we’ve gone full circle back to the corded-phone days.
What? When? Are gen-Z using corded phones now or something?
Read the comment I replied to.
Ok, you were being facetious too. Cool.
The moral is – Wi-fi intensity study should be part of modern architecture.
I’m all for 👍 architecture. Just consider Wi-fi before building it.
For this structure, I wonder if the best solution is – Just add more mesh points. Not elegant but what if there’s no better way?
That was my interest in the story. Technology is so ingrained in our lives. It’s weird more furniture doesn’t have power chargers and other cords better designed into them. It’s weird our houses and electrical codes haven’t caught up.
But this is just a huge step back. Unless I’m unaware of lots of other new and old buildings with similar issues.
No, please do not start adding electrical components to furniture en mass.
If you do, I give it 1, maybe 2 generations, until furniture is partially subsidized by tech companies and it becomes niche to NOT have a “smart couch”.
Funny you mention the smart couch because that’s the type of furniture that seems to come with USB charging stations a lot nowadays. But I hope most smart home devices remain a niche for a while. The open source and crafting community around them is pretty amazing and I’d hate to see it getting literally sideshelved for smart home prefabs.
In my country, from what I observed, not many study tables and work tables with power outlets. 1 may say, “Add usb-c sockets too.” But the future is hard to predict. Will there be usb-d? Will 150-watt charging be the norm for phones? The safe thing to do is just outlets. Power bricks for phones are cheap anyway.
Agreed. My work desk is barely four years old, and already its integrated USB-A ports and Qi 1 charger are outdated and basically useless to me. I’d prefer not having them. The power outlet is still fine though.
Your batteries last longer with trickle charging. If you’re at the desk most of the day, USB-A and Qi 1 is perfect, and should be adequate for another 5-10.
Neither of my last two phones came with a USB-A cable, nor did my wireless mouse or keyboard. The flush Qi 1 charger doesn’t even work because my camera bump is too big. Also, from what I’ve heard Qi 2 should produce far less heat while charging, which makes Qi 1 worse for battery life.
Sure, I could “make it work”, but I’d be happier with two electrical outlets or even nothing than the basically useless wireless charger and ports I have now.
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To support MU-MIMO / beamforming (multipath signals for multiple devices) they could also just add more flat surfaces inside the ceilings to make radio reflections/echoes less complex so that the signal processing doesn’t get overwhelmed when the source is some distance away.
Plain absorbing material removes interference but doesn’t let you use MIMO tech as effectively, because the newer higher end routers can use those reflections to boost the signal
I thought of interference too. If the Wi-fi was bouncing all over, there may be many areas with destructive interference – weak or no Wi-fi.
I fucking love 👍🏻 architecture, gotta be one of my favorite genders
The two genders: engineers and architects
It’s a Google office building, they definitely considered Wi-Fi before building it but they made a mistake. Compared to that building in England that turned into a glass death ray I think this was a less obvious mistake.
Obviously they didn’t do a Wi-fi intensity study.
Oh they for sure fucked up, I just mean that it was likely a mistake as opposed to them not caring. Pretty crazy for a huge corporation to overlook it though.
I’m pretty sure the problem is the shape and reflections. This type of design creates echoes from many directions which makes it harder to pick up the signal at a distance
Googlers assigned to the building are making do with Ethernet cables,
If I’m working at a desk, then I’d definitely rather have a cable than rely on wireless, regardless of the roof structure.
lmao sounds like they just need to all stand right at the spot where the parabolas of the ceiling have a focal point.
The parabolas’ focal points are outside of the building, which incidentally is also the best place to be.
“Please return to the office. Or at least outside the office. We built the office inside-out accidentally”
Night at the Roxbury Deux?
Do you want a grilled human? Because that’s how you get grilled human.
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Reminder: this is the company that holds a monopoly on the internet and dictates web standards.
I would say aws is super important too lol
Funny how there’s a lot of wired vs wireless hate in the comments, can’t really pin down the reason. Generational?
Wired will always be more stable and faster, whereas wireless is more ubiquitous. If you work at a fixed position, prefer wired. If wired is unavailable, well, you’ll have to make do with wireless. USB-C dongles and docking stations are a thing, so the laptop doesn’t have it argument doesn’t hold.
Thank god for a lick of sense. I literally do low voltage and controls design, they both have their place. Building a cluster of cubicles for accounting? Yeah, run some Ethernet to their docks. Building a warehouse production floor? You better have enough WAPs to confuse Cardi B installed so the little manager with his iPad can edit processes on the fly.
Wired is not always faster. I have a WiFi 6 router at home that (only) has gigabit ports, and wireless speeds are often faster than wired. WiFi 6 is quite common in consumer electronics, but 2.5gbit is not.
Then that’s the fault of the device design, or using incorrect cables, and not of the communication standard. Using cheap CAT 5 cables that max out at 100Mbit instead of good quality 6a cables is going to mess up speeds too.
WiFi 6 offers ~9Gbps under ideal conditions, and that deteriorates with all the usual reasons for WiFi, and wired is 10 Gbps for whatever distance. The standard says wired is faster. Your particular device failing to meet those speeds doesn’t represent the communication methods.
So you agree that wired is not always faster… It depends on the hardware you’re using. And most consumer grade hardware you can buy today has faster wireless speeds than wired.
Wireless is only faster if wired is using outdated or underdeveloped gear. If a box has faster wireless than wired connection, then it was clearly designed to cater to wireless. GbE can hit up to 100gb.
Show me one home that is wired with cat8 cables lol. Then I’m going to show you the millions of homes that have an isp provided wifi 6 router.
I bet there is a strong WiFi spot a few feet above the building.
I actually rather prefer ethernet. Much more stable.
Why do all thing need to look like these soulless glass metal and concrete blobs. Like bruh, why not build something cool lime a Roman Temple, European Castle, Viking Longhouse, Ancient Chinese Pagoda …
Epic (software company) has a really cool campus near Madison, WI where all of the buildings are different styles of architecture. One of them is a giant dairy barn.
Ok that is epic indeed
Those would be far more expensive to produce, needing specific skilled craftsmen. Not that glass production is easy, but compared to hand-carved wood and stone the labor hours alone is a staggering difference.
I think glass metal and concrete blobs are cool.
highly skilled labor shortage and time. eventually ai architects will 3D print incredible stuff that is completely unmaintainable.
These are done by architects rather than designers. Usefulness isn’t a consideration, only form and aesthetics matter.
Architects are designers.
The solution is more Unifi hotspots
Just make every ceiling tile and outlet have one and you’ll have all the coverage you will ever need
This is correct. As the article says employees are using their phones as hotspots so it’s not as if it’s a Faraday cage. Their IT guy should do a Wi-Fi site survey and install a few AC Pros.
I hope this is a joke. There’s no way a campus like this is going to deploy Ubiquiti.
No, they’ll deploy all the Google Mesh wifi cans…
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Those are great, installed them at the last place I was a trainee at.
ez solution. It just costs money for new design, hardware, installation and maintenance but holy shit google double check your build plans sometimes.
I’ll take access point bombing for 1000 Alex. I see several in wall and wall-mounted varieties in the immediate future of that place… 😂
Its funny that one of the monuments of capitalism has bad WiFi because the roof had to be very fancy and imposing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Reuters reports that Google’s first self-designed office building has “been plagued for months by inoperable or, at best, spotty Wi-Fi, according to six people familiar with the matter.”
At launch, Google’s VP of Real Estate & Workplace Services, David Radcliffe, said the site “marks the first time we developed one of our own major campuses, and the process gave us the chance to rethink the very idea of an office.”
The roof is covered in solar cells and collects rainwater while also letting in natural light, and Google calls it the “Gradient Canopy.”
All those peaks and parabolic ceiling sections apparently aren’t great for Wi-Fi propagation, with the Reuters report saying that the roof “swallows broadband like the Bermuda Triangle.”
Googlers assigned to the building are making do with Ethernet cables, using phones as hotspots, or working outside, where the Wi-Fi is stronger.
A Google spokesperson told Reuters the company has already made several improvements and hopes to have a fix in the coming weeks.
The original article contains 301 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 45%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
