This speaks to the 802.11g in me.
While meeting up with Deanne (the marital complement to Jonathan) at the airport last night, I noticed that in the “Atrium,” the retail space and lobby between the North and South terminals, there was a sign advertising that the “SSID” of the airport wireless access point was such and such.
Is it a reliable indicator of market penetration and consumer acceptance of a technology when relatively arcane IEEE standard acronyms make their way onto glossy posters directed at traveling end-users?
December 19th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I don’t think the sign makers necessarily expect widespread comprehension. To the people who don’t understand the terminology, “SSID” probably fades right in with “TSA.” And most people who _would_ need to know that information will also probably understand the acronym, or at least that it refers to what they’re looking for.
Not being one of the wirelessly suave myself, though, I suppose I can’t say for sure.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Lisa wrote:
In my opinion, you’ve identified a very important consideration underlying a lot of exposition and phraseology when it comes to this stuff.
It’s the same way that I often expect half the terms I use to be missed by people to whom I am delivering certain types of detailed technical explanations; they know where the arrow points, even if they don’t understand the nature of the arrow and cannot calculate the precise endpoint of the trajectory as if they had a laser scope.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Being apart of the alliance group between the Cut All Trees Down Foundation and the End All Acronyms Initiative, I am a bit biased.
But I do think Lisa nailed it with saying that for the people that actually use that service, they know what it is.
The cost of printing up the posters and putting them in place of valuable ad-space would be a lot less than airport staff being interrupted from operations every 30 minutes and then having non-technical people relay the ssid and other various wireless information (I would imagine this to be true, at least. I have no facts to back this notion.).
December 19th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
But most wireless clients and GUIs give you “network names,” not “SSIDs.”
December 20th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Not sure what the point of that sign would be, though.
I am not up on the technical details of wireless networking, but if the SSID is broadcasted, why do you need the sign? And if it isn’t, why not just broadcast it and take down the sign?
Presumably the sign can’t prevent spoofing (either spoofed SSIDs or spoofed signs)?
December 20th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
This is a good question, given that the name is rather intuitive.
The SSID is the text name associated with the wireless access point.