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Technology

Wireless Broadband Getting Closer 98

Posted by Roblimo from the freedom-from-fiber! dept.
robertth writes "Wireless broadband is coming to offices and homes using a two-way point-to-multipoint implementation of the cable industry's DOCSIS platform. See the Broadband Week story ." This technology offers an interesting possibility: Building a cable modem-speed infrastructure without getting into the right-of-way hassles that have led to our current local cable TV (hence cable modem) monopolies - and may also offer a rapid way to bring Internet (and telephone, with voice over IP) service to remote areas.
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Wireless Broadband Getting Closer More

Wireless Broadband Getting Closer

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  • Low cost wireless network how-to (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For those intrested, there is a how-to on building your own wireless network at http://www.qsl.net/~n9zia [qsl.net]
  • Some of us will *never* get broadband without wireless. I need this now!

    You forget that not everyone lives in an area served by numerous connectivity options.

    New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • What about Road Runner [twcnyc.com]?
    --
    Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.
  • This ascii picture representing a beautiful female is impressive and was striking the first time, but may I ask that these pictures be posted in a more appropriate location?

    Three people where I work have their necks on the chopping block (their computers are gone) for downloading masses of porn last week. Images like this can cause problems in a workplace where both genders work. I enjoy reading technical forums, but I can do without being the subject of a witch hunt when nude images are found.
  • It can happen. I set up a similar system (the
    first wireless MMDS Internet outside of the US)
    in Lagos, Nigeria this past year. This year it
    will roll out in Abuja, Port Harcourt, and
    Enugu.

    If the market is there, this technology will come.
    I'm already talking to people in Kenya, Mauritius,
    and Venezuela about setting up similar systems.

    http://www.hybrid.com/ - These guys made the first
    reliable (non-DOCSYS) MMDS Internet system. It has
    it's faults and it's annoyances, but it's the only
    proven platform out there right now. Hey- it's
    head end equipment runs FreeBSD, so you've got to
    love it.. :-)

    Anyone out there who wants more information about
    offering wireless high-speed broadband Internet
    services send me an email.

    Robbie
    robbie@shorty.com
  • the spectrum is infinite in both directions

    Huh? There is 10 KHz of bandwidth between 10 KHz and 0 KHz. There is room for expansion in the high-frequency direction only if you consider the propogation characteristics. When you get really high in frequency the atmosphere becomes more opaque. All of the frequencies we are talking about here are line-of-sight only.

    Bruce

  • Wireless provides an immediate solution. I live in a rural area on a dirt road. I can connect my 56k at best 33000 on a good day. They say we will not see cable (TV or broadband) for another 10 years. There are many places like this in the US that would benefit from wireless... thats why!
  • Hey... at least it works better in the winter! I live to far for ADSL to be a solution, and the is NO plans for cable in may area until after 2008. Wireless would seem to be a quicker to impliment solution. Whoever said it was a bad idea must own stock in MCI. Oh well.
  • "He cited the new orthogonal-modulation system and the multipath signal-integration technique of the VODFM platform as key differentiators, along with the fact that the system can be implemented on DOCSIS-based circuit cards inserted into Cisco routers."

    IANAS but... This is exciting to hear, because multipath signal-integration has been a goal of many networking developers. I'd like to know how they achieved this without violating the FCC clause 385a (regarding M.S.I. for computer networks), indeed at the speeds they are claiming.

    What I disagree with however is O/M (orthogonal-modulation), which has many obvious problems in this style of implementation. VODFM and O/M can't co-exist as technologies in a single standardized implementation unless a large amount of redundancy (error correction coupled with signal compression) is also added.

    Well that's what I think anyway.

    --

  • I've been using WantWeb's service since mid 98, and have loved it, as I have enjoyed 30-180k/s downloads longer then most of the people in the area. And it's all done with microwave range transmissions fron an antenna on a mountain several miles away to an antenna on my roof. From there, it has a cable going to my cable modem that has an 10baseT port and a 9 pin serial port for the uplink. The parent company American Telecasting has two way rights from the FCC, they just haven't changed the equipment in my city to support it.

    I feel that some sort of wireless connection is the future for many people.
  • ///////////////////////////
    Sorry about that. My in-laws were like you television-wise until they got a satellite dish. But they are worse off with the modem... their local phone service is so old and slow that they can't even connect at 56k! Can you imagine?
    ///////////////////////////
    Can I imagine, easily. I have one phone line that tops out at 26.4K and one that tops out at 19.2K (one line is a full mile longer than the other). Wireless service is my ONLY possible answer for broadband at a reasonable price, 3 doors down I have a neighbor with ISDN, it cost her $4500 to install and $650/month connect. She wouldn't be paying it, but she is consulting with the phone company and they cover it.
  • The EM spectrum is far from infinite, especially if you're interested in the portion that's referred to as RADIO.

    The RF range is relatively narrow, compared to the other sections of EM, but it's characteristics are such that it's very useful. Omnidirectional transmission, and the ability to propagate the signal through solid objects is of great benefit. Unfortunatelly the data carrying capacity of RF is relatively small.

    The amount of data that can be crammed into EM is proportional to the frequency, and if you jack up the freq, you lose the neat properties of RF. You go unidirectional, and you start cooking whatever meat you transmit through. Yes, that's right, the high side of RF is called microwave. Then there's X-ray, gamma radiation.. You really want that beaming your data into your house?

    Along with the adverse effects of high-freq EM comes the energy considerations. It takes a lot of power to push high freq signals, and they tend to dissipate in water vapor, so distance transmissions via air become a problem.

    In order to push a large amount of data through RF you need to spread the signal across sevaral frequencies. These frequencies must be relatively discrete. This improves your thruput, but it fills the medium more quickly, and as far as communication is concerned, air is the wire. Lots of collisions in a spread RF area.

    So, radio is of fantastic use where better options are not available, and for short and bursty traffic, but as far as web-browsing... Man, banner ads alone would kill the airwaves.
  • I'm in the same situation. I'm on a farm 50 miles from the nearest cable or ADSL internet access (province of Saskatchewan in Canada). Just getting a second line so I don't tie up our phone line when I'm online would cost a fortune! (last I heard it was $800) And similarily to you, on a good day my 56k connects at 36000 and I have to wonder if it'll get worse because it used to regularily connect at 38666. So I say bring on the wireless broadband! SaskTel is usually pretty good about rolling out new technology early (ADSL was in the larger cities two years ago) so I'm hopeful that I'll see this sooner rather than later.
  • It makes more sense to pull fiber?

    Not if I'm the service provider. See, I can cheap-like set you up with wireless now. Then, when the mobile applications need wireless, I can sell them my chunk of the spectrum and use that money to pay for fiber.

    Sure, it's a hassle and a half to the end user and the mobile application provider, but I get to get in the door for cheap and when I need to go fiber, somebody else pays for it!

    Of course, in all seriousness, when you get down to it, _we_ pay it, we being the consumers. If they can start offering broadband cheap over wireless, then that's good for us, too. We only wind up paying for fiber later, instead of now _and_ later.

    -JDF
  • To this poem I must reply,
    Moderators shoot your cr*p from the sky,
    Surely it is no crime,
    when Anonymous Cowards like you behave like slime,
    when you submit multiple trash,
    we need a moderator to kick your ass,
    if we need to see your puns
    we just set our theshold to -1 (minus wun!)
    Once was a time when Anonymous meant brave and true,
    now most post garbage just like you.

  • Yes, I was dumb enough to reply, but reasonably witty posts, whether you agree or not, deserve a response....

  • My home's in Queens, about 10 miles from Manhattan -- and there is no broadband there! Supposedly Time Warner will have cable modem eventually, and BA is promising DSL, but this is already several months old. I just tried searching [bellatlantic.com] again, here's what it said (and has said for at least the past six months)
    We're sorry. Infospeed DSL is not available in your area at this time. The good news is that it should be available in your area in the next six months. If you'd like us to contact you when your number qualifies for Infospeed DSL, click here to be placed on our notification list. We will only contact you if Infospeed DSL becomes available to you.

    Note: In some cases, Infospeed DSL may become available in an area, but not be available to your home due to technical limitations. The technology is improving rapidly, so if you are affected by this situation, we will keep your name on our list and notify you if Infospeed DSL becomes available to you.


    This is not some boondocky place, this is within the New York City limits!!! Now I don't know if wireless is the solution to this problem, but the assumption that everybody has access to DSL or Cable is wrong.
    ___________________
  • hm, well, according to this, we have cable modem now (little neck), so I guess I was wrong about near my house, but look down by hillside and springfield gardens -- spring of next year. So the point is still somewhat valid... lots of people don't have it yet. Even parts of Manhattan still don't have it.
    ___________________
  • Spread the meme [salon.com] indeed! Very interesting... and scary.

    Thanks for the link.

  • First nude post (Score:1, Interesting)


    What the hell are you smoking? ASCII spam like this being posted all the time on /. The only way to moderate this is DOWN! Besides, if it's ASCII art you're looking for, there are plenty of places on the web dedicated to this, like here [geocities.com]!

  • Who Cares? It's in the 5Ghz+ band. That is useless spectrum for anything but line of sight things like this. The more access options the better!

    Well, I have a past (and to some extend present) in ham-radio (amateur radio). At a cirtain time a long long time ago the VHF and later UHF-bands were assigned exclusively for ham-usage (at least in my regions) because "those very high frequencies are an useless spectrum for anything"......now, how many services have migrated from the HF-bands and lower to VHF and higher bands?

    History (also from within our own field of computers) should have tought us not to deem anything "useless for anything but " - sooner or later they will become usefull for a lot more than originally envisioned.

    While I agree on "the more access options the better", I also have to agree with those who point out that it makes more sense to pull a fiber to each house and use low-power, local-area wireless lan in-house, than it does to provide a global (or at least nation-wide) wireless system.

  • That's cool technology and all, but... to me it (wireless/airport) just seems to ruin the geekyness of networking.

    I mean, c'mon, what rocks more than taking the afternoon to lug half a dozen boxes to a central locality, spend an hour getting config info set, wires strung, and systems powered for a LAN fest? Wireless just kills the fun there. I mean, I just love to sit there playing Half-life or Quake 3 and have a large mass of RJ45 cable under my chair because it wasn't economical to cut. Having so much extra slack might hinder bandwidtha little, but so what? It's worth it.

    It just makes sooo much sence to have miles and miles of cable obliterated in turn for excessively high-speed vibrations in our air waves. I mean, come on, what harm could high-speed vibrations in the air do, really? It's not like you'll get sick from it. And you can just use a different frequency if the one you're using is already taken. There are plenty available, and I'm -sure- the FCC is more than willing to allow just about anyone to use them free of charge.

    Hmmm... somehow, that came out sarcastically.

    Oops.

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • As much as we would all love to have fibre installed to every house and business, at this current time it's just not economical, especially in smaller city centres. While there is fibre running through my area (just outside Hamilton, Ontario) the local loop cost is over $300/month excluding bandwidth (depends on ISP), and that's just for 1meg bandwidth.

    With the telco's, it's over $1000/month just for local loop T1, and business ADSL is $500/month ... just not feasible for only bandwidth.

    There's a provider around here rolling out wireless 2-3meg for well under that, and it includes professional web hosting, etc... They're called WDSL Inc. [wdslinc.com]

  • Who Cares? It's in the 5Ghz+ band. That is useless spectrum for anything but line of sight things like this. The more access options the better!
  • This is not a waste of spectrum. This is 5Ghz+, which only works for line of sight communications. It will not pass through anything. This is above even the microwave band. Therefore, applications like this are really the only way to use such small wavelengths.
  • I have 11mbps to my home with lucent wavelan from my ISP (which I am the network engineer for) 5 miles away.

    Someone asked, "why wireless? why not fiber to the home?" Well, no matter what cable/fibre you use you know the telco or the cable or the power company is going to own it, and paying rent and upkeep on all those lines will add to the cost of the service.

    I live in an area with no ISDN even, it would cost me $300 a month to get a T1 from my ISP to the house and about $4k for routers and DSU's etc... this way I spend $300, and no monthly fee. And 11Mbps!
  • Not so - this stuff is realativley cheap - cheaper than offering dialup service for up to 11mbps! I am doing it at my ISP, we are small 700 users at a little over a year in business.
    I am actually tempted in an area where T1's for dialup cost $1300 a month to drop dialup and go full wireless.
  • Yeah, that sux. But it also sux when one is waiting for DSL to come ten more meters....
    #$%^%

  • Jason,

    Is this something anybody can get, or just you?

    Thanks,
    Tim
  • How to become rich easily?
    (1) Get yourself a monopoly on telephone calls; a monopoly on local call will do;
    (2) charge as much as you want for long-distance and international calls.

    Why bring in broadband, if you can make truckloads of easy cash in this way? Further, the internet and large bandwidth will only compete with your cash cows. So, as a telco, prevent large bandwidth at every price!
  • Have you checked Flashcom [flashcom.com]? I know a few people in the bronx that have xDSL access from them, and the price isn't bad.

    Hope this helps.
  • This is precisely the scenario our nonprofit ISP (cat.org.au) faces. Tel$tra suck bulk money for some measly 64kbit I$DN and the ongoing cost is just ludicrous. It cost me about a hundred bucks to make some helical aerials (PVC tube formers, copper wire, N-connectors and some 9913 cable) and something like that again for some WaveLan cards, and we'll be getting about 2Mb/s when it goes, for *free*. Just what the greedy corporate fucks who own the bandwidth deserve.

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by cot ( 87677 )
    Why do we need wireless to our homes? Why waste the bandwidth?

    We need fiberoptic to our homes, and small wireless lans (ie Airport) within them. Save the long range wireless for PDAs, laptops, and other needs outside the home.

    It just doesn't make sense in the long run.

    cot
  • The isp's in my area were started by dedicated men and women that with a small amount of captial grew thier business into a service that help bring our communiy into the future. BUT...cable is here...can these little guys who tinker in their basement afford the equipment..if they dont.. no big company is going to go near a small rural area..the unsong heros who helped propogate the future might soon be priced out of it.

  • It isn't really a waste, because the spectrum is essentially infinite. (the only limits are practicality of the equipment, the spectrum is infinite in both directions) Currently there are as many as half a dozen different cellular networks in any given area. These could easily be replaced with a single system that could provide an IP based network with plenty of bandwidth for all the cellular calls, and the regular phone service, in addition to any new services that are developed.

    I think that we should move almost entirely to wireless for a number of reasons. Amongst these are the convenience it would offer, as well as the savings on maintenance. Around here, the slightest rain will cause enough noise on the line to seriously degrade my connection (we're talking 19200 baud here). Cutting out the wires is one way to fix that. (the other is putting in completely new wires for cable modems, something my local cable company has declined to do thus far) Imagine all of the computers in your house are always on the network, even if you decide to pick it up and take it across town on a picnic. Makes wiring PDAs and stuff a whole lot easier as well. My father tells me you can get some very fancy receivers that use superconductor technology to achieve phenomenal results, which means tiny transmitters and vastly extended battery life, so that's essentially a non-issue as well.

  • There is no such thing as 0 Hz. Think about it, a Hertz is one cycle per second, so zero Hz is the same as 0 cycles in one second, or 0/1. The wavelength (lambda) of such a wave would therefore be v/f (v=lambda*f). Since the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic wave is 300000000m/s (we're assuming that we're transmitting through a vacuum), we get 300000000/(0/1) = 300000000 / 0 = undefined, and so we can see that 0 Hz isn't possible. Instead, we approach 0 asymptotically, such that a wave with a frequency of 1Hz has a wavelength of x, a wave with a frequency of 2 has a wavelength of .5*x, and a wave with a frequency of .5 Hz has a wavelength of 2*x.

    Yes, I realize that as you get higher frequencies, you get more and more line of sight only. This isn't a bad thing, however, as this is what makes the whole system work. Sure, low frequencies are great for a point to point link because it can travel great distances easily (think AM radio, I live in Florida and can occasionally pick up stuff from across the country), but in a packet switched environment like IP gives us, you don't need that, in fact, it's undesirable because there would be too much interference from other nodes on the network.

    I also realize that to a certain degree (not sure to exactly what degree) higher frequency waves are capable of traveling less distance through air, but as I said, all that is required if you desire greater bandwidth are more receivers, or more powerful ones.

  • Maybe not in the long run, but the short run is lots longer than you might realize. I think one great unconsidered market for wireless broadband is rural areas. It's difficult enough to get a high-speed data connection in these areas, but just try running a decent Internet service with the local phone cooperatives in some places.

    Wireless allows an end-run around the traditional connectivity providers, increasing competition and perhaps supplying a long-term solution if the providers of land-based solutions don't get their acts together. Very very useful. In fact, it isn't news that broadband wireless is ready for deployment, many sites have already been deployed in the past few years.

  • Wireless to people's homes would be a monstrous waste of our precious radio spectrum. We will eventually need every bit of that wireless bandwidth for mobile applications. Why use it on applications for which fiber optics would work just as well, if not better? Yes, the cable companies currently have a stranglehold on the market for broadband to your house (xDSL just isn't there yet for most people). The solution, however, is not to go wasting our radio spectrum on wireless broadband! Lay fiber-optic cables. The initial investment is big, but it will pay off big-time when the rdio spectrum starts filling up and peole want something faster than cable modems.
    --
  • I also realize that to a certain degree (not sure to exactly what degree) higher frequency waves are capable of traveling less distance through air, but as I said, all that is required if you desire greater bandwidth are more receivers, or more powerful ones.

    And at some point, when you're trying to increase frequency, you run smack into a wall - the atmosphere is quite opaque to most of the EM spectrum. Only a few small bands (like radio) are at frequencies where the atmosphere is reasonably transparent. The cost of trying to push anything on a frequency where the atmosphere isn't almost completely transparent would be astronomical. Trust me, the spectrum itself may be infinite, but the usable portion of the spectrum is very finite and going fast.
    --

  • I see latin and spanish. Dont remember enough latin, though, and suspect that other lanugages (or nonsense) have been added as well. Curious: can anybody translate this rather odd mix?
  • translated title
  • I currently live in Austin, TX. We have a wide variety of connectivity choice, the best being from a company called NoBell. They offer 3mbps bi-directional connections for aprox. the same price as cable and ADSL.

    I live in a hole in their coverage though. If I ever move I will take their coverage into account. Curently I pay the same for a 2 mbps/200kbps cable modem, with no static IP from a cable company who could care less about me.

    My other option is ADSL, but even living almost downtown my line barely qualifies, so I won't be going any faster than 384/128kbps, too slow.

    I am looking into SDSL from the competing providers, but to get 1.5 mbps (half of the wireless), I am looking at $900 for an unmetered account.

    These microwave frequencies are not usable for portable devices, they require line of sight and a directional antanae. While things may change in the future, the spectrum isn't being completely used up. Lets use these frequencies to make things better for home/office use.
  • Because if you live where we do then there will not be dsl for another 5 years, and having 64k of bandwidth with out the hassle of telco is a cool thing.
  • Perspective folks.

    If you had the choice between (a) putting physical cables under all the streets, driveways, sidewalks and rose bushes and (b) mounting a box on a pole and another in every attic, you would choose (b).

    Then figure in the difference in cost and difficulty of upgrades and repairs -- are you still waiting for the cable company to install cable modems in your neighborhood? Again (b)

    In places where there are no phones, no copper wires, certainly no fiber, rf (cellular) is what is being installed.

    Bandwidth, like memory prices, disk size and processor speeds gets better every year. Qualcom (the folks who brought you digital cell phones) is offering digital bandwidths greater than 2.0 megs per user.

    Ultimately, RF will be the winner. Why wait. Lets start now.
  • Sorry about that. My in-laws were like you television-wise until they got a satellite dish. But they are worse off with the modem... their local phone service is so old and slow that they can't even connect at 56k! Can you imagine?
  • This is ridiculous. Why waste the precious wireless bandwidth when the copper wire infrastructure is already in place. I mean technically everyone could have a T1 hooked up to their house if the phone companies and ISP's would drop the prices some. The infrastructure is already in place for high bandwidth access. Its just the greedy corporations who are too stingy to provide the service at a reasonable price. All it takes for a T1 as far as the physical line goes it two regular phone lines. In total you would then pay for three phone lines to your house. One for you regular phone and two for the digital (frame relay) signal.
    This solves are bandwidth problem right there. No need for these exotic solutions using satellites or wireless. No need for overkill...


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • Don't you get it stupid. $30 = 2 years registration...

    Therefore $15/year.


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • What happens when I accidently walk through a router stream during a DoS attack?
  • it will suck if we have to do this just to defeat the cable monopolies.
  • damit, i'm just happy to finally see broadband coming around and in many more different forms. i live in an area where you're lucky to get 56k performance and the geeks are all day dreaming about Cable and ADSL because we may never get these services before we frikkin die. So there.
    ;-)
  • > not everyone has a handy dandy mountain nearby

    Then they can (and do) use tall buildings instead.

    They can also set up repeater towers to
    get the signal beyond/around other obstacles.

    This will not be a universal solution, but it
    is proving to be more viable in areas that
    frankly, Cable and DSL are not interested in
    martketing to right now.
  • High frequency radio and homes generally won't mix too well. Even at relatively modest frequencies like 2.4Ghz, the line-of-sight has to be very good. Got a tree between you and the access node? Forget it. Raining? sorry, your data rate is going to go down.

    Where microwave data links are good is linking office buildings across town. This works especially well when you have a couple large buildings that are willing to host your antennas. It might also work ok for apartment buildings. But for residences? Nope.

  • Hmmm. But what if I were carrying uncooked grits in my pockets?
    Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
  • I agree with you there. the old rural electricification put lights on in the stick. And as one with a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, I'm all for wiring it up, or even the wireless! (Uh, and no, the REA didn't get that far there, as there's no electricity there either, but at least THAT I can take care of, good old sun, wind, and new fangled fuel cells.) I'll build soon as I can take the computers along, so I can still pay the bills!
  • Have the people that keep shouting that this should be used for handhelds stopped and thought about this? The last thing I would want to do is put a small device emitting microwaves in my pocket. It would be like carrying a small cooking device around on your person. And what about you car keys have you ever seen what happens when you put something metal in a microwave? Now imagine that happening in your pants not to mention that if your going to start irradiating large areas with microwaves your going to end up with a bunch of hairless mutants running around checking stock quotes on there PDA's. (shudder) this may be cool but I don't think it's vary practical
  • Or beans Beans and franks any one?
  • I remember it was the same time Al Gore was telling us all about the information super highways. It was about 6 years ago when Apple Computer's partitioned the FCC for access to a large hunk of band width in the Giga HzRange. hundreds of channels with 24 Mbits each. But did Al have the forethought to let us build the true internet. no. The radios would have broadcast range of only 10 to 15 Kilometers. Now if every slashdot nerds set up a router on there roof. With many Gigabits of band width per zone We all would have built our own Internet. We all would have free air time on our cell phones which in turn would supply Internet access every where all the time. But AT&T got in there and said dumb things like we can't have people attaching microwave ovens to there PC's. People will say anything to maintain there monopoly over our communications. And they did.
  • Think of the possibilities of global wireless broadband. I've heard that Qualcom is going to have a 2.4gig wireless laptop modem out soon. And you know it won't be long before a variety of smaller devices with this capablity hit the market. Access to information, no matter where you are, is one of most enticing opportunities the web has to offer. PCS phone services and advanced pagers have only scratched the surface in this regard. I just can't wait to be "working from home" while sitting at the beach.
  • People are even abusing my own good name, which I worked so hard to obtain!

    Q: What kind of troll decries ACs while posting anonymously?
    A: A fucking dumb troll!

  • We've all been jumping up and down about the Deep Dark Corporate future for the Internet. Some people have declared that there will be a revolution, whilst others have confidently restated old homilies. Most popular of these is "The Internet perceives censorship as damage, and routes around it."

    I don't think there's much a government or a corporation can do about you or me. Where they exert real leverage over the net is in unified, single-point services. AOL, for example, controls enormous swaths of the Internet. This makes it a high-profile target for laws hostile to Internet freedoms. The Australian experience is that yes, Governments will go after big targets.

    Wireless broadband is the backdoor out. Not necessarily the "transmit to base" kind advocated for wireless access companies, more the "point-to-point" kind which l0pht (amongst others) have tinkered with.

    If people are determined to keep the Internet free, than the key is to have free tubes. Cheap, personal point-to-point networks can form small areas where Free cells can survive and even prosper. As these grow, they can link up, eventually providing uncontrolled tubes for the Internet to route uncensored material into.

    Of course, it can be argued that such devices can be regulated. Of course they can, but not in the same easily-policed fashion as a single-point provider. If twenty million people have personal point-to-point, it won't be very practical to regulate them. Examples have been given where the FCC gave up on certain kinds of CB radios.

    We shall see. If nothing else, somebody cursed the 21st century. These truly are interesting times ...



    --

  • yeah your right.... The more we have, the better communication we could, *plus* boosted access to the wide spectrum of information.
  • As a radio astronomer, I worry whenever I see stories about wireless communications, especially broadband. Is there going to be room for us in the future? Astronomers measure signals having strengths on theorder of 10**-26 W/m**2/Hz, and we need large bandwidths to get these signals, even with cooled receiver systems. Even a small amount of leakage from adjacent bands can kill our signals (We've already had problems with Russian GPS satellites, and IRIDIUM satellite signals).

    The problem is made worse by the fact that spectral lines from many atoms and molecules can only be found in the radio frequencies (the whole range, but it gets very congested up in the mm to sub-mm wavelengths), and thus we either have a clear frequency band, or we lose the science. And much of the science can only be reached at these frequencies.

    So, the question really is - how much does astronomy mean to you? Are you willing to forgo theknowledge and wonder that is astronomy (as well as the technological benefits that flow from people trying to push the envelope in a different direction than industry) for the sake of a faster connection, or a funkier cell-phone (or so the engineers can get away with a sloppy implementation to meet budget and time constraints)?
  • Just think of all the poor people in Alaska or some other remote place...i'd say this technology is worth researching....

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