back to article Stop the IoT revolution! We need to figure out packet sizes first

While the world gets excited about Internet-of-stuff saving people from the exhaustion that follows putting down a smartphone or using a remote control to adjust the thermostat, there's a bunch of research still needed to get more serious applications like sensor networks bedded down. It's not just that the world is choosing …

  1. Khaptain Silver badge

    >While the world gets excited about Internet-of-stuff

    Is that the whole world or just the world of white appliances......

    Whichever packet size or netwokl layer they manage to change it would be nice to think that "security" is being carefully considered at the same time..

    It's enough that the NSA know that you watch YouPorn but that they will also know that you will soon be running out of cheese, milk and beer is frankly discouraging.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      the NSA know that you will soon be running out of cheese

      or perhaps you could reprogram the fridge to hide your cheese supply datastream steganographically inside your porn bandwidth?

    2. big_D Silver badge

      When I read "Internet of stuff", I always picture Kevin Kline in Wild Wild West ranting at Will Smith about him being the "Master of the Mechanical Stuff!"

  2. frank ly

    " ... and increase goodput."

    Isn't 'goodput' what you get when you've increased throughput?

    "... an increased delay.", "... a moderate packet payload size ..."

    I can't imagine that my fridge or central heating controller would be bothered or affected by an inreased delay or have anything more than a small packet payload size. Is this about the IoT things or the neighbourhood network data gathering process?

    Alternatively, I can imagine the problems involved in controlling individual IoT enabled lightbulbs and kettles in a large office building; if you want to go down that route.

  3. Sealand
    Facepalm

    Excited about Internet-of-stuff?

    Simple cordless household light control is stupid enough. The thought of not being able to turn off the lights because the batteries are dead has always amused me. Why would I want software in my lamps?

    Reminds me of the tagline of an old colleague (a programmer):

    "To err is human - total breakdown takes a computer."

    1. Haku

      Battery-free piezo powered wireless lightswitches

      I saw a sample switch module about 5 years ago, it wasn't wired to any wireless circuitry at the time, but the piezo inside did generate enough power to blink an LED when you pressed the switch down and then blinked another one when you let go.

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: Excited about Internet-of-stuff?

      There's a fix to the batteries running down in the remote. You put a mains powered 'controller' with a simple on/off toggle setting to override the remote in a fixed position in the room, somewhere like on the wall at shoulder height just inside the door.

      Hey presto, problem fixed.

      .... I feel I'm missing something here.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reinventing the wheel?

    Cellular radio stacks already tune all those parameters automatically in response to channel conditions. All the research behind it was done as part of the standardisation process.

  5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    Note their comment about the *whole* stack

    IE decisions made about what data is sent (number of retries, level of error correction, if any, applied at this stack level) can have serious IE non linear effects on throughput.

    Keep in mind that sacrificing guaranteed access to the medium to radically increase apparent bandwidth (for those actually using the medium) was a key feature of the original Ethernet protocol.

    I agree though that a battery powered light switch is (conceptually) stupid.

    That said there are (industrial) radio switches powered by the act of pressing them. That starts to sound sort of reasonable.

    But I'm not that big a fan of the idea to begin with.

    Mine's the one with Vernor Vinges' "A Deepness in the Sky," which is the only novel I'm aware of that looks at this idea even slightly.

  6. Michael

    Stating the bloody obvious

    What would we do without academic studies to tell us what is bloody obvious.

    There are plenty of large scale sensor networks have been running for years without issue. You design your system for the environment and make compromises based on real measurements and deployments.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    C'est la meme

    Once upon a time there was this thing called the ARPANET which eventually morphed into something called the internet. This needed tweaking as it scaled.

    Who can forget the excitement of implementing things like van Jacobsen compression back in the day to squeeze a few more bits down a serial line or fiddling with TCP MSS clamping and MTU nowadays to get VPNs to perform correctly when some tosser has switched off _all_ ICMP traffic somewhere in the path?

    Gosh: world needs knobs and dials to turn.

    Cheers

    Jon

  8. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Meh

    Short Version

    The more stuff you've got, the harder it is to control it.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Batteries NOT Included

    The only winners here are the Batter Makers. with all these incompatible remote controls that all need at least two batteries thay are onto a winner.

    As far as I'm concerned this IOT stuff is nothing more than ans answer needing a question. A question that I have yet to see asked in a way that makes sense.

    I'm all for controlling stuff. (I have an MSC in Control Eng so I would say that wouldn't I..)

    But to let any of this IOT Data get on any form of common access network (local LAN etc) is in my mind total and utter lunacy.

    The likes of GOOGLE/GCHQ/NSA etc must be wtting themselves at all this data they'll be hoovering up.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LoT is a stupid concept

    Those who promote LoT don't understand that people don't really want a spy device on their toilet or freezer.

    Millions of dollars will be lost by companies like douche Samsung investing in it. They will cry, and then they will move on with another stupid concept until the end of time.

    1. druck Silver badge

      Re: LoT is a stupid concept

      Just goes to show; there's always a new generation of Luddities to claim we don't need any new form of technology.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: LoT is a stupid concept

        Well... I don't need a new form of technology to go to the toilet.

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
          Coffee/keyboard

          Re: LoT is a stupid concept

          See Icon :)

  11. DNTP

    Dammit my refrigerator with the veggies and tofu is getting too much lag, I guess it's time for pizza night again.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's been a long time coming

    Certainly more interesting than the Internet of Twats...

    I've been quietly adding sensors all over the place in my home since I moved in, based on Arduino and Raspberry Pi...

    Reliable, low power, easy to do. Why? Because I can.

    Having a kitchen that scans barcodes and manages dates, shopping lists etc is a goal, not just the fridge bit, but tinned stuff etc.Why wouldn't you want to call up an app that suggests recipes based on what you have at home, or could make if you had one or two extra things?

    Bring it on :)

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