Community Wireless Networks in the UK

Some random reader points us to this story about community wireless networking in the UK. Not really any new news, but maybe the publicity will get more people involved. As usual, if you want to set up your own node, you can start at Nocat or PersonalTelco.

Comments

The future of Wireless

[KeatonMill]

I envision a future in which the entire world is wirelessly connected, one in which you can walk anywhere on Earth (with the possible exception of the oceans), and still surf the 'net (or whatever has replaced it by then) with your wireless equipped laptop or handheld.
Of course, we have a long way to go before we get there. As the article mentions, the 2.4 GHz band is slowly being used for more and more transmissions. Unless we regulate usage in some way, the wireless world will become impossible to achieve, as the noise would be too great.
Another problem is that of price. In order to have a fully connected network, you would have to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of nodes placed throughout the world. The unfortunate truth is that SOMEONE would have to pay for that, whether it is a private company or government(s).
Once you DO have such a network, however, control becomes an issue. If the network is privately controlled, someone could be making a bundle off of everyone's usage. If the government controlled it, it could be used for propaganda. If I had to chooose one over the other, I would choose a group of nations (the UN?) to control it, and it could become another sanction they could place.

Can anyone else see this happeneing?

Re:Community wireless will never succeed

[Wonderkid]

I disagree. 1) The main threat to 802.11 will be 3G (and 4G) once they arrive, just as the mobile phone has pretty much killed off most public phones. 2) Where I believe there is a market, until 3 & 4G mature, is in coffee shops. Yes, I know they already exist in techie communities, but I have spent whole days in coffee shops in San Francisco, and paid for several coffees, sandwiches and cookies. If more people visit such places because they want to work away from their office or home office, it will bring in business for the coffee shops and cover their DSL line that's wired to the 802.11 base station, such as Apple Airport or other. This could open up markets anywhere there are a lot of business people, not just techies. And even if people do not want to buy a coffee or cookie, as per...

ZA Spot Restaurant
371 11th St. (between Harrison & Folsom)
SF, CA 94103
USA

(Formerly the Red Roaster Room at another location in San Francisco)

...customers can always pay a few dollars just to sit down on sofa with laptop and warm the knees.

Whatever, wireless will be THE largest industry this planet has ever known 3-4 years from now. Bigger than cocain and the auto industry put together. (Unless of course it is proven beyond a doubt that we're all having our DNA scrambled by anything from Bluetooth to Ultra Wide Band and everything in between.) Now that would be a major bummer!