1. SIP VoIP, over 3G and WiFi, with Bluetooth and in the background
I’ve successfully run phone calls over AT&T’s HSPA network, so assuming the processor on the iPad is “all that” this shouldn’t be difficult. If I can get a SIP client that connects to a Bluetooth headset and allows other applications “up front” without killing voice quality then I’ve got a very versatile system for nformation gathering while “on the phone.” This is particularly useful when you see my other requests below:

2. Full-fledged RDP, SSH and VNC clients…and either GoToMyPC or LogMeIn if at all possible
The iPad can be an excellent remote access tool; its screen has enough resolution to run any modern OS without having to scroll around. Add in the keyboard accessory and you’ve got a lovely little remote terminal that works anywhere AT&T has service (I’m talking about the 3G version here). Or any other non-AWS GSM or 3G carrier for that matter; the device is unlocked. SSH would be a godsend for doing command line heavy lifting, though you’d need a host to SSH to in this case (not a big deal for me). Even nicer, all of the above will likely be available for the iPad as App Store apps; no jailbreaking required.

3. A high-quality PDF viewer
I want a PDF viewer that can search and copy text, preferably at least as good as Preview. Yes, Preview can be outdone with PDFs…it’s not the most compatible piece of PDF reader in the world unfortunately.

4. File download capability, preferably with an FTP/SFTP client as well as your standard HTTP access
The iPad has an accessory port, and that accessory port already allows for an SD card reader and a USB port. If you could mount that USB port or SD reader as a drive letter (possible with the OS, but probably will need to be hacked) then there’s a TON of stuff you could do with the iPad, though things start to get kludgy once you realize that you can’t hook up a keyboard and a hard disk/SD card simultaneously. Hmm, maybe the keyboard dock could have a pass-through dock connector…or have an application that would use internal memory as a cache for editing files so you could unplug the drive, edit the files with the keyboard attached, then plug back in and write the files. Heck, wile I’m at it, why not let shares on AFP and SMB be mountable to the device?

5. WiFi printing
This will likely be implemented in short order as an application, though hopefully it will be available throughout the operating system. THat way I can go to a website, grab a PDF of some sort (documentation, textbook, whatever) and send it to a networked printer. No muss, no fuss.

6. Network diagnostics, both standard and wireless (including 3G)
I’m not just talking ping/traceroute/speedtest, though those would be nice. I’m talking about field-test-level stats on wireless and 3G. Why 3G? Well, for one AT&T isn’t the only 3G carrier out there, and if network engineers on smaller carriers can troubleshoot their cellular deployments on a cheap-ish, small device then maybe there will be more field testing going on. On the WiFi side, an iStumbler-esque application would be lovely, complete with a signal strength history graph, with geotagging of signals if at all possible (though this would take a toll on battery life). Heck, add the geolocation to the 3G field test if at all possible and just for kicks port WireShark to the iPad and you’ve got one powerful network analysis device in a pound-and-a-half package.

7. Voice recorder, preferably with backgrounding
I’m guessing this will be included when the iPad ships, but it would be lovely to be able to take the iPad to a lecture or an interview and use it to record the conversation. Even cooler would be an application that would combine a text editor with the voice recorder; in “review” mode you could seek through a recording by going to a place in the text notes, and the other way around.

8. OneNote-like application
Capacitative styli are available. Make an application that allows for text notes, handwriteen notes/diagrams and even voice notes all together. Great for school and for college newspaper writers like myself

9. Access to a bash shell on-device
I’m sure this will only be available when the device is jailbroken, but it would definitely be useful. A full shell, complete with nano for text editing etc., would make the iPad a lightweight BSD workstation, and who doesn’t like lightweight *nix workstations?

Sure, I’m reaching a bit for the above things, but the hardware is all there; you just have to either open up the software or make an application. There are a few subsystems that would be nice to have,a dn they might even be available inthe upcoming iPhone OS 3.2. In all honesty, I think Apple is going to have to make this device rather hackable for enough people to buy it; they’re blazing the trail for a new category of device and if they shun the “Woz box” mentality they’ll be selling very few of these things once the fanboys and their contituents finish buying (which should take about 45 days).

So naturally I pulled out my HTC Touch Pro, which has WiFi, to see what network they were running on. After registering for an account on the hotspot provider (Less Networks, never heard of them) I checked whatismyip.com to see who I was on. Sure enough, the connection there was GVTC, registered as “Guadalupe Valley Telephone”. Right before we pulled out of the place I opened up my laptop, logged into the WiFi network that way and did some tests. Here’s what I got for a traceroute:

traceroute to softlayer.com (66.228.118.53), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  192.168.169.1 (192.168.169.1)  194.115 ms  181.762 ms  77.970 ms
2  96-8-192-3.block0.gvtc.com (96.8.192.3)  94.851 ms  107.971 ms  146.974 ms
3  12.88.219.169 (12.88.219.169)  47.516 ms  218.308 ms  149.762 ms
4  cr1.santx.ip.att.net (12.123.154.10)  81.998 ms  58.617 ms  64.528 ms
5  cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.30.130)  71.363 ms  55.947 ms  70.918 ms
6  gar6.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.100.65)  52.436 ms  58.138 ms  56.583 ms
7  12.90.228.14 (12.90.228.14)  52.971 ms  48.888 ms  80.834 ms
8  border3.tge4-1-bbnet2.ext1.dal.pnap.net (216.52.191.83)  52.188 ms  51.494 ms  52.917 ms
9  te2-1.cer03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (216.52.189.30)  55.883 ms  54.237 ms  55.133 ms
10  po3.dar01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.209)  53.084 ms  84.979 ms  47.910 ms
11  po1.slr01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.138)  66.371 ms  54.266 ms  57.160 ms

I have a feeling that the WiFi conection was flakey, otherwise I would have gotten a better traceroute.

Speed-test-wise I got the following:

I’m guessing the line was provisioned at 8 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up, but I can’t be sure.

The IP address, for what it’s worth, was 96.8.236.103.

All in all, not a bad hotspot, and the traceroute is nice and short between where I was and AT&T’s network in San Antonio, which GVTC appears to use exclusively to connect to the internet nowadays. So someone using an AT&T aircard and GVTC FTTH will find themselves with similar traceroutes within just a few hops, at least around here.

I guess I’ll leave it at that…if I talk any more about GVTC I’ll start getting envious of their 20/3 and 40/10 FTTH service, which I have no chance of getting at my place. Can’t even get DSL there :/

So below are the APs my computer “saw”, along with their channels. To my knowledge, all SSIDs of similar naming (e.g. North Fbg. A and D) are on the same tower, just on different radios/antennas. Also, to my knowledge my provider only uses 20 MHz channels to deploy its service, rather than economizing on spectrum by using smaller bandwidths. So if they’re broadcasting on channel 1 (this is all 2.4 GHz stuff) then channels 1-4 are all at least partially occupied. See this diagram for more details.

SSID – Channel
Hayden Ranch – 9
Hospital A – 9
Hospital B – 7
Grapetown – 11
Grapetown B – 2
Morris Ranch – 3
Morris Ranch B – 7
North Fbg. A – 7
North Fbg. B – 1
North Fbg. C – 11
North Fbg. D – 4

Note that on the North Fbg. tower all frequencies are used in the 2.4 GHz band. Not the best use of spectrum, I’d say…

Okay, so maybe not everyone using HughesNet is suffering, always lonely, is stuck on a deserted island and has a bunch of people in the background chanting about his doom. Still, the plight of someone on HughesNet these days can’t be overstated by much. Hence the excerpt from a play that I acted in my sophomore year in high school. Four years later, I had to Google it to make sure I got it word for word, but I was close enough to find the passage.

What does this have to do with my short, albeit rather painful, experience with HughesNet? Not much, other than the painful part. In fact, the rest stop west of Eden, TX, while remote, is quite different than a deserted island. For one thing, the structure on which the internet satellite dish was purched was well-maintained. Second, US-87 runs by said rest stop. Third, the Texas Department of Transportation instituted the free wireless hotspot as a public safety measure, seeing as how some carriers’ cell phones (ahem, Sprint…ever heard of roaming on Five Star Wireless in the Eden area?) just flat out don’t work around those parts. Of course, you can’t use any sort of voice communication technology over HughesNet, but I suppose that’s beside the point. Still better than a deserted island with vipers and no free public WiFi, right?

So enough with the literary references. As is my usual wardriving custom, I did a few traceroutes, speed tests and forays into the wireless access point admin panel while we were stopped at the rest stop. This took a little longer than the family liked due to the length of each hop of the traceroute (five to ten seconds) but I got them to stick around long enough to yield the below results:

Tracing route to google.com [74.125.45.100] over a maximum of 30 hops:

 1     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  192.168.10.1
 2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 3  2078 ms  1842 ms  1854 ms  host67142002135.direcway.com [67.142.135.2]
 4  2555 ms  1842 ms  1944 ms  host6714200158131.direcway.com [67.142.131.158]
 5  1848 ms  1772 ms  2115 ms  host6714200149131.direcway.com [67.142.131.149]
 6   913 ms  1820 ms  2031 ms  host671420078131.direcway.com [67.142.131.78]
 7  1750 ms  1535 ms  2047 ms  12.86.52.225
 8  1826 ms  2047 ms  2038 ms  cr2.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.129.142]
 9  1838 ms  2057 ms  1842 ms  cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.28.177]
 10  1840 ms  1944 ms  2558 ms  cr1.attga.ip.att.net [12.122.28.173]
 11  1836 ms   984 ms  1820 ms  12.123.22.5
 12  1036 ms  2763 ms  1944 ms  12.88.97.6
 13  2585 ms  2224 ms  1646 ms  72.14.233.54
 14  2041 ms  3168 ms  1970 ms  72.14.232.215
 15  1975 ms  1304 ms  1977 ms  209.85.253.137
 16  1228 ms  1841 ms  1535 ms  yx-in-f100.google.com [74.125.45.100]

In short, you don’t want to game on HughesNet. It’s bad for your health. No Voice over IP either; the connection is jitterier than a junebug on a caffeine high.

Want a speedtest? I did one of those too…used testmy.net as it seems to be the de facto standard for sat internet speed testing. All the other tests paint Hughes, WIldBLue and their ilk in an even dimmer light…

:::.. testmy.net test results ..:::
Download Connection is:: 812 Kbps about 0.81 Mbps (tested with 1024 kB)
Download Speed is:: 99 kB/s
Upload Connection is:: 40 Kbps about 0 Mbps (tested with 386 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 5 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net (Main)
Test Time:: 2009/07/19 - 6:44pm
D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-91E08GPX2
U-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-ZJ9AFBQ43
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 [!]

I actually did the test twice. Apparently HughesNet isn’t terribly good at uploading data; I know my computer does fine at it, and I’m supposing the wireless access point (a Colubris model; everything except that and the internet’s public IP address was hidden safely behind a login page) wasn’t falling down on the job.

So, according to the above, HughesNet isn’t very good at what they’re supposed to be doing: providing high-speed internet where cable and DSL can’t reach. Then again, WildBlue doesn’t seem to be that great at the job either lately, but at least WildBlue will give you their internet access package for $50 per month, and have internet plans that top out at a whopping 22 GB of data transfer per month, usable any time the service is available.

Of course, service on HughesNet varies from area to area. I’m just hoping that the above is the lower end of the scale for Hughes, though I have it on good authority that there’s worse out there. It jsut doens’t happen to be on a deserted, snake-infested island minor highway at a rest stop.

Starting off with the wireless division, we see the iPhone getting a few new laurels to rest on. It has snagged the top spot for most sold US wireless phone this quarter from the Motorola Razr, and also appears to be 2X the reliability of BlackBerries and nearly 3X the reliability of Treos. AT&T has also opened up free AT&T WiFi access to iPhone and other smartphone users. This is particularly cool since the company also bought up hotspot operator Wayport right around ten minutes ago.

Last but not least, 1.1 million customers and a lot of spectrum, towers and other such infrsatructure got traded for a cool $944 million in AT&T’s buyout of Centennial Communications, yet another regional GSM carrier to fall under AT&T’s sway.

UPDATE: Looks like AT&T will be allowing iPhone tethering…for $30 on top of your regular data plan. The transfer limit is 5 GB with this option, and if you’re thinking that the total data cost is equal to that of a dedicated modem, you’re abso-freaking-lutely correct. Ripoff? Yes, but I suspect people will bite. Though Sprint’s network is generally faster, and tethering is only $15 on top of a data plan, which is also $30 on top of a voice plan but also includes everything from navigation to text messaging.

Speaking of WiFi, you get that free with most AT&T DSL/U-Verse plans. Which may be capped. The monthly transfer caps are as follows:

$10-$20, 768K, 20GB (DSL only)
$25-$32, 1.5M, 40GB
$30-$36, 3M, 60GB
$35-$43, 6M, 80GB
$55, 10M, 150GB (U-Verse only)

The caps are a bit biased speed-wise toward the lower-end tiers, but of course cost-per-GB-wise toward the higher tiers. Overages will be $1 per GB. The caps are squarely between Time Warner Cable’s proposed 5-40 GB limits and Comcast’s 250 GB cap. What’s funny about this is that AT&T hs plenty of backbone infrastructure, especially with U-Verse, to allow everyone to download as much as they want. Of coursse, business-class users won’t see these caps, but users in the Reno, NV test market already are, or they’re being grandfathered in at 150GB per month. What’s unnerving is the result if you only qualify for a lower-speed DSL connection due to distance from the CO: low caps, high overages.

Speaking of U-Verse, AT&T has introduced an 18 Mbps tier (1.5 Mbps upload) for $10 more than the 10/1.5 Mbps one, or $65 per month, though people have reported that they’ve gotten better deals by calling AT&T to upgrade. The caveat: the U-Verse service has to share bandwidth with any TV that’s running, and the shared pipe is only 25 Mbit/s wide downstream and 2 Mbit/s upstream. This “profile” is due to the fact that VDSL (the tech upon which U-Verse is based) drops off quickly speed-wise as distance from the VRAD (fiber-fed DSL terminal) increases. The result: if you’re watching TV, you get 14-15 Mbps internet speeds instead of 18 Mbps, though TV quality doesn’t degrade while the internet is being used. No word on caps on this tier; let’s hope they’re to the tune of 250GB…competitors are sure to deploy DOCSIS 3 in response to this new U-Verse tier, and Comcast‘s caps are well above AT&T’s proposed ones.

Last but not least, AT&T is trying to create a video search engine (!?!) in partnership with a startup by the name of Divvio. Once can’t but think that this new service, dubbed Videocrawler, will be a nice tool for chewing up your gigabytes once caps are in place. Why I oughta…