Reviving Ricochet: Better Than WiFi?

renard writes "Slate is carrying a column by Brendan Koerner arguing that reviving the Ricochet city-wide wireless network infrastructure would be a better idea than blanketing the nation/world with 802.11-ish WiFi. He reviews all the usual silly reasons why Metricom, the original owners, were unable to make a go of it, and makes a good case that things may go better the second time around."

Comments

2nd time is a charm

[carpe_noctem]

Having worked for Ricochet this summer, I can say that they've spent a lot more time really thinking about their business plan and marketing strategies rather than rushing in like the old dot-coms. I've heard that a small subscriber base is starting to develop, and the Ricochet technology is being used (experimentally) by the fire and police departments for roaming internet access.

Hopefully, Ricochet will manage to do at least -somewhat- better than Metricom did, though seeing how they conducted themselves, they feel quite a bit more responsible than the archetypical dot-com business.

I used to use Ricochet in Seattle

[Jack William Bell]

And I use 802.11B for home networking now. My take? Ricochet's only really cool feature was they way they used repeaters on light-poles. Other than that it was slower and more expensive (both in terms of equipment costs and connection fees) than WiFi.

If WiFi networks can do repeaters to extend range to an Internet gateway the same as Ricochet did, who needs it? Plus I like the idea of having my local network be my neighborhood, something Ricochet couldn't (or didn't) do. Check Seattle Wireless for one volunteer network that is working on these problems now.

Re:I used to use Ricochet in Seattle

[Stigmata669]

And why can't you put 802.11b repeaters on the top of light poles? That is not unique to Ricochet. The range isn't there without directional antennas, but WiFi basestations are $100 RETAIL with NAT and DHCP routing. Remove those features, and a company should be able to produce repeaters for reasonable costs.

I do believe that large area of coverage is the only way that a company will be able to generate revenue. I think starbucks tried to introduce wireless access in their shops, but $30 a month for coffee and net access is kindof insane. Perhaps if a p2p stlye co-op net company was formed where the access costs were trivial ($5 a month) but the customer would purchase all hardware, and would be required to have a repeater on their property. Now, where to start?

Re:How is a nation-wide WiFi possible?

[interiot]

Isn't the range on ethernet only a couple hundred feet? In 1980, did we imagine that a large percentage of the country could have access to cable modem speed lines?

Re:How is a nation-wide WiFi possible?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Isn't the range on ethernet only a couple hundred feet?

The later variants of ethernet (including gigabit and WiFi) have hacks to expand the range (which was limited in the 10 and 100 Mbit versions by an interaction of packet size, inter-packet gap, and clocking variations).

As for WiFi's radio range (due to power and antenna limits), you can easily get >10 miles in a point-to-point link by using a directional antenna at one or both ends.

This is not STRICTLY legal, because the directional antenna concentrates the power in a tight beam, which is thus more intense, and one of the limits is on the intensity (rather than the overall power). The focussed beam can thus interfere with other stations farther away in the preferred direction.

But the Fed has shown no sign of trying to actually enforce that limit - despite the appearance of commercial operations selling equipment for the purpose and/or setting up commercial ISPs with links based on the hack.

And it's probably appropriate to allow it: While the directional antenna lets you compete with stations farther away in the preferred direction, it does so by weakening your signal (and your reception) in other directions. The two effects approximately balance out, and you're left making significant bandwidth competition in about the same area with a directional antenna as with an omnidirectional.

Even better: Directional antennas tend to be more heavily used in the boonies, where the spaces-between tend to be empty of users, and where wired ISPs are too expensive to be practical.