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You can find the location of every poletop Metricom ever put up as part of the bankruptcy sale asset list at the metricom sale site.

but Aerie has the rights to that equipment as well.

I'm afraid not. The poletop easements and the equipment on them were abandoned by the bankrupcy court, which is what caused Aerie to reduce their bid to $8.25M from $20M; see news coverage for details: Aerie will have to rebuild the equipment.

Although you can no longer get to it from the main web site (which has been replaced with a bankruptcy notice), the coverage maps are still available. I believe Metricom also built infrastructure in some additional metro areas where service was never officially announced and no coverage maps are available, but Aerie has the rights to that equipment as well. Some of those metros include Chicago and Salt Lake City.

Forget Aeron chairs, check out the stuff in their auction.

Forget Aeron chairs, check out the stuff in their auction.

I am sure everyone reading this thread is trying to get onto Alex Belits web page (link doesn't work, hence this post) as it is linked multiple places in this thread, and every webpage worth it's weight is linking to his page (he added support for the Richochet GS/128 k modems to STRIP). Unfortunately his page is inaccessible; however, and I know this is not really kosher; GOOGLE has an archived copy of this page, allowing you to read up on the support, and get a better feeling of where the project is now, as well as the support for the USB modems and 2.x kernel, straight through support and patches for the 2.4.1 kernel. Hope this helps everyone, this sounds like a very interesting technology, it's too bad it didn't fly.
-OctaneZ

(Nightingale being the firm that has stepped in to liquidate the company.) By shutting off the service before the auction on August 16th, Nightingale has destroyed whatever goodwill the company might have had left and has prevented the auction of part or all of the network as a "going concern," as claimed at http://www.metricom.com/auctioninfo/. It has also sabotaged WWC's chances of being able to sell the services provided by a buyer. WWC has been hurt by this. It should sue.

From the metricom security site:

The architecture inherently provides for rugged and secure communications. Each radio - including the user modem connection - spreads its transmissions over 162 channels (each of which is 160 KHz wide) that are randomly selected using unique sequences; sequential data transfers never occur on the same channel. Called Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS), this random technique makes it extremely difficult to monitor the signals to or from any particular radio.
......
Metricom provides RSA's patented RC-4 encryption capabilities that further ensure privacy for connections established between any two points on the Ricochet network. This data encryption makes the data streams moving over the network far more secure than typical wired, telephone-based connections. Our radios use a military originated spread spectrum technique to send data. This technique makes it inherently difficult to tap into any data stream a user transmits. To further ensure privacy, we will optionally encrypt all the data sent to your gateway. The modem and the gateway use Diffie-Hellman key exchange to negotiate a session key. This key is renegotiated periodically. This session key is used to encrypt the data between the gateway and the modem with RSA's RC-4 encryption. We use up to 256 bits of key length to encrypt the data stream. This encryption is too strong to be exported out of the country.

/me has no beef with 256 bit encryption. They've been working on RC5-64 for how long?

~zero

from the Website it looks like they tried to stay afloat, but died anyway. They filed chapter 11 (which doesn't always mean the company dies) a month ago. In so doing, "the Company sought to restructure its operations and debt obligations while maintaining the operation of its wireless network and continuing to provide services and access." Oh well, guess it took them a month to figure out they couldn't, cause on August 8 they'll be gone. Wonder how much the tech behind the modems will go for at the auction? Not much atm, since no one has any money. I'm not looking forward to my eventual lowering of salary due to there being more and more techies available. We're not the rare commodity we used to be!

I thought they were just bankrupt. Aren't they hoping on selling all their equipment, technology, and customer base to someone else?

http://www.metricom.com/auctioninfo/index.html

It may be wishful thinking, but since it's a tech writer that wrote the story at go2mac, it's possible that the network engineering staff has been retained until the auction. The network becomes much less valuable at auction if the court ordered total layoffs and the network goes dark so the 50k customers get hosed.

According to metricom, the entire operation is being auctioned off, not just the hardware so I suspect that we'll see Worldcomm step in and get a wireless network on the cheap.

Either way, you should check out X10.com. They don't have anything to interface the cam to a cell phone, and I'm not sure how you would do that. You might look into whether Metricom's Ricochet (which offers wireless internet in Washington and Baltimore) happens to extend to your area of the bay.

X10.com has lots of remote controls, switches, and cams. You will want to read carefully, as they come in several confusing packages and "specials."

Some of them are inexpensive and work with VCRs to only record when there is motion. They also have also have multi-camera/motion-detector/Internet systems that record one cam at a time. The site is kind of cheesy, and I have not purchased from them, but they have been around for a while (over a year).

Good luck.

Neither cells nor ricochet work well underground, though.

Personally, I see the pay phone staying with us a while longer. I've used one this month, when I didn't want to run up my company cell, and needed to make a long, long distance call. I think they're still needed.

Have you ever thought about using a radio modem to a chase vehicle? When I was working on my school's solar car project in 1995, we had a van loaded with various telemetry equiptment, including a radio modem connection to the car, so that we could get speed, battery consumption, etc.

I don't know enough about your race, but with a power inverter, a few space car batteries, and someone willing to follow you in a car, this wouldn't be that hard to pull off.

[If, however, the race route is completely closed off to vehicles, this would be more difficult].

You might also look into other forms of communication. Check to see if Metricom has access in our area, or someone like them. [I haven't had one of their modems since '97, but the modem at that time had a battery which lasted me a good 3-4 hrs of constant use.]

With the chase vehicle concept, you might also try looking at X10 gear, but I don't know what their power consumption is.

Ricochet wireless modems offer a 28.8kbps connection, and can be used in peer-to-peer mode *without* requiring a service provider (Metricom will never tell you this of course). Range is a couple of miles. They operate like regular modems in every sense: serial connection, AT command set.

Each modem has a "modem number" on the back and you just "ATDTXXXX-YYYY" to dial another Ricochet modem. The other side even sends the "RING" string, and you use "ATA" to answer. Totally transparent to whatever application you are using. These are truly wireless modems.

Although they are tough to get (either through ebay, or Metricom with a 1 year signup), they are the most amazing devices. I have two, and they cost me about $120 a piece. They are pretty funny to use with TI calculators and a Graphlink.

-Justin

Ricochet wireless modems offer a 28.8kbps connection, and can be used in peer-to-peer mode *without* requiring a service provider (Metricom will never tell you this of course). Range is a couple of miles. They operate like regular modems in every sense: serial connection, AT command set.

Each modem has a "modem number" on the back and you just "ATDTXXXX-YYYY" to dial another Ricochet modem. The other side even sends the "RING" string, and you use "ATA" to answer. Totally transparent to whatever application you are using. These are truly wireless modems.

Although they are tough to get (either through ebay, or Metricom with a 1 year signup), they are the most amazing devices. I have two, and they cost me about $120 a piece. They are pretty funny to use with TI calculators and a Graphlink.

-Justin

Once high-speed mobile internet service becomes more common, I expect to see streaming audio superceding conventional radio. These satellite audio broadcasting systems won't deliver enough bang for the buck compared to what mobile high-speed IP offers.

-Isaac

I like the idea of having a cordless headset, with the Bluetooth cell phone behaving like a radio base station. Ideally, this should also allow me to use the cell phone as a wireless modem for internet access (like the Metricom Ricochet)

Then if the PDA is bluetooth enabled I'll be able to also use the cell phone for internet access instead of going the more expensive route of buying a cellphone _plus_ a 33.6 Kbps Palm V(x) modem ($170 excluding monthly access fee) or cell phone upgrade kit.

Now if an incoming cell phone call is not recognized by my cell phone's stored #s, it will look in the PDA's addressbook. If it doesn't find the incoming call there it will do a reverse lookup via the net or phone company. That way when it eventually displays "TeleMarketer, Inc" on my cell phone or PDA or synthesizes a voice announcement into the headset I will not pick it up.

This bluetooth connectivity could also inform my PDA that when ClientX calls, my PDA will bring up his contact record and let me know to say, "ClientX, I haven't talked to you since last Tuesday at 3:43 pm when we discussed the software component Bubba will be delivering to you tomorrow"

Extrapolating this idea. What's to keep me from using a bluetooth headset with: my wired phone on my desktop or as headphones for my walkman or as a microphone feed to a PA system or a walkie-talkie? Also, as bandwidth gets bigger why not have the headset include a monitor/camera.

This type of system then begins to cover most sensory areas with sound in/out, sight in/out, digital data in/out. The senses not yet addressed would be smell, touch, and taste, but not even the Borgs had those accessories on them!

At least one end of an RF link needs to be well-sited and engineered. Cell sites and broadcast stations are in high, well-chosen locations with good antennas, so that they work with remote units in lousy locations with poor antennas. This is the basic limitation on peer-to-peer RF systems. However, if you have access to tall things to hang antennas on, it can work. Today, though, it's hard to find a tall thing that isn't overgrown with cellular antennae. People with tall things now want to be compensated for antennas on them. And there's more public opposition to putting antennae up every year.

I'd once toyed with this idea as a net for video games, with all the video game boxes in a neighborhood linking up. I'd also thought of a way to do legal "pirate" radio, with boom boxes acting as relay stations using spread-spectrum in a junk band. But without well-placed base stations, there will be too many dead spots.

Metricom probably has the cutest approach to this problem. Their service uses little boxes attached to street lights, and operates spread-spectrum in the 900MHz band. Most of the nodes are RF-only relays; only a few have wired connections to the Internet. They provide a good, although low-bandwidth, flat-rate mobile Internet service.

Interesting technology brief here

I'll bet some of you smart folks could even get them working with Linux.

so what immediately caught my eye about this story was the fact that you could peer ricochet modems. assuming this is the case, what's to stop me from putting a ricochet modem in (connected to) my firewall/gateway machine and connect another one to my laptop for local wireless access?

i haven't heard of doing this kind of this before. in some preliminary searching through the web i've found these articles of interest.

• on deja:

• a sample ppp-on script for ricochet.net service (which doesn't involve anything peer-to-peer)
• a whole interesting thread about doing exactly what i want without much detailed information (plus, the guy doin' it seems to not have his domain runnin' now).

• from ricochet:

• an explanation of how to do your ppp scripts through red hat (doesn't cover peer-to-peer).

• the basic linux ppp-howto (which might have all the info needed in it)

• ppp-howto

has anyone done this?

The 128 kbps modem is available from Metricom for $250 to $300 this summer and is not capable of peer-to-peer communication. The 128 Ricochet is going to be used in the wireless service provided by UUnet this summer in certain cities. (See related story)

CDPD is Cellular Digital Packet Data, which crams data packets around the TDMA digital cellphone space, giving 19.2kbps always-on IP data service. AT&T offers a flat-rate service for about $55/mo, and there are various other service providers that offer per-packet pricing.

Metricom Ricochet radio modems are cool - depending on the model, they range from about 28kbps-equivalent to 128kbps performance for radio-based Internet access. They're mainly located in high-tech areas and big airports, but they've gotten recent investment from MCI, so they're starting to grow a lot. It's a microcell system with pole-top radio pods connected to the network either by radioing to each other to reach wired pods. I'm not sure about the new service - the older modems could switch cells easily at walking speed, but not very well at driving or train speed. Hang one on your laptop and you can work wherever you feel like, or at least stay connected when you head out for coffee, meetings, work in the park, etc.

Here in the US you can get Ricochet from Metricom if you live in DC, San Francisco or Seattle. Their press says that they're going to 128kbs, and it's unlimited connection time. Works on a frequency hopping spread spectrum radio system. The coverage sucks outside those three cities, just major airports and a few universities. Linux isn't offically supported but you guys with linux laptops are used to that.

1. Power efficiency is a lot, but it isn't everything. I think the big win here is lower power draw than Intel, while offering x86 compatability that StrongARM doesn't have.

2. Clock speeds are becoming less and less of an issue. Let's face it, there's damn little software of interest to the average consumer that's actually going to need 800+ MHz. Yeah, yeah, I know, wait until next year, today's screamer is tomorrow's piece of junk. But Transmeta is also free to increase clock speeds and improve their chips.

Most of the market they seem to be aiming for is concerned with web access and email, not video editing. I think these chips will have the power for that.

3. As for mobile access to the net, check out www.metricom.com. They make the Ricochet wireless modem, which is currently in the process of rolling out a 128kbps network to about 46 cities. Metricom had a successful beta of the network last year and secured about $600 million in financing from Paul Allen and MCI/Worldcom for the rollout. I've used the older Ricochet modems (28.8kbps), and they worked like a charm. And they use flat-rate pricing, which is critical for mobile users, IMO.

4. Why do they have to combine with AMD or someone else? They're not a chip fab, they're a design shop. I expect that they'll partner with whoever wants to make the chips, which will depend on consumer demand. We'll see.

In the Washington DC area and the SF Bay area, there's a company called Metricom. They provide "always-on" Ricochet radio modems which connect to the Net via a network of low-power transceivers hung from streetlight poles. Except for the fact that they're not at all nationwide, it's not a bad system for constant connectivity.

There's no shortage of wireless LAN products for around the office. Try this list. Outside the office, you'd really like something like a Metricom Ricochet modem.

There's no shortage of wireless LAN products for around the office. Try this list. Outside the office, you'd really like something like a Metricom Ricochet modem.

-=-=-=-=-

I hear that the wireless access on this thing is limited to HTTP access, through a proxy, to things that have a PQA and maybe even a special deal with 3Com. If that's true, that's not cool. Using a Ricochet modem, people in the San Francisco Bay Area can get full, real, bi-directional TCP/IP support on anything going back to the Palm Professional. They can then use any of a large number of Pilot network apps of all descriptions, including things like an SSH client. If that's not possible on the new model, it is a real step backwards (except for the wider service area).