Nexus 6 Review: Wi-Fi Done Right

I've been a Droid user for many years.  Started out with the Droid 1 then onto a Droid 2, Droid RAZR Maxx, Droid Ultra, a very short-lived and painful experience with the Droid Turbo, then a Droid Maxx which is essentially a slightly fatter Ultra with more battery.  When my battery's capacity started to run short, I started looking at other phones.  I decided to get a Nexus 6 (unlocked from Amazon) when Google announced that they would roll out Wi-Fi Assistant to all Nexus phones.

Wi-Fi Assistant was originally a Google Fi feature that applies a VPN to open Wi-Fi access points - without user intervention.  In fact, Wi-Fi Assistant is now (once you have the Play Services 9.6 update) capable of securing all open Wi-Fi, even ones where you manually connect.  This is a huge move by Google that will hit the cellular carriers hard because if I'm able to use public Wi-Fi with confidence, and my phone is latching on to open Wi-Fi by itself - why do I need a large data plan?

This all takes Wi-Fi a step closer to being a viable alternative to cellular data, although there are still many issues.  The problem is that managing a Closed SSID network is painful and complex, and Open SSID networks are subject to abuse.  Wi-Fi also suffers from a handoff problem (i.e. it has no handoff method) and it's fairly easy to do a man-in-the-middle attack in coffeeshops - without 802.1X there's no way to know if that "xfinitywifi" hotspot is really Comcast or not.  Wi-Fi Assistant solves that problem by providing a VPN back to Google's servers.

zOMG so fast!

So far I'm very happy with the Nexus 6.  It's a two year old design but it feels quite snappy.  Google's clearly still putting effort into development, and the Android is pure - no Verizon or Motorola/Lenovo weirdness.  It's a bit larger than I'm used to, so I'm glad I didn't get the Nexus 6P, but I have large hands so it works for me.  Wi-Fi in the 5 GHz band using 802.11ac on the Nexus 6 is fast.  It easily maxed out my 75 Mbps DSL connection in a speed test.

For a while I'd been using an iPad in the evening because the screen was much better than my Droid Maxx.  Now the iPad sits forgotten for days at a time, as I find the Nexus 6 screen good enough to handle almost anything.

Use It or Lose It : Google makes a play for part of the 3.3 GHz amateur band

I've presented several times at Pacificon on the topic of spectrum auctions and the threat to amateur radio's allocations.  In my talk Ham Radio Must Die (So It Can Live) at Pacificon 2010, I specifically talked about the threat to the 3300 - 3500 MHz band.  The threat increased exponentially when the FCC converted the 3500 MHz band to the Citizen's Broadband Radio Service for use in heterogenous networks and densified mobile data systems, and now Google is asking the FCC for permission to test a wireless last-yard technology for delivering Google Fiber service in the upper half of the 3300 MHz band.

In my Pacificon talk I pointed out that the 3300 MHz band is almost never used, and the possible auction valuation to commercial users is very high.  If we presume a $2 per MHz-POP auction price (which is about what the AWS-3 commercial carrier spectrum went for) and a US population of 320 million, the value of the 3300 MHz band is $128 billion.  The AWS-3 auction, record-setting though it was, only raised $47 billion.  For a government $19 trillion in debt, $128 billion isn't much but it's a start.  Google could afford to buy that spectrum, and with the unprecedented access it enjoys due to the revolving door between itself and the White House, it has the political clout to make this happen.

There are just over 800,000 licensed amateur operators in the USA.  $128 billion puts the value of our 3300 MHz band at $160,000 PER OPERATOR.  For something we never use.  I'd be willing to say (and I'm being very charitable in this estimation) that 0.1% of all US operators make use of the 3300 MHz band.  That's $160 MILLION PER ACTIVE OPERATOR.

I'm not saying what Google's doing is right.  If you think it's wrong, file comments with the FCC.  I'm saying what they're doing is not surprising, and that I predicted this would happen six years ago.