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Lanlink Linking The Coasts
Dan Bricker writes "A guy in Parma Heights, Ohio has a website to promote an idea of linking the east coast to the west coast using standard off-the-shelf 802.11 equipment. He is aiming for a July 4th, 2006 first coast-to-coast ping. This project appears to be totally volunteer based, With no other stated reason than fun with pringle cans and bad weather, and do it just to do it. Can this be done? What real world applications does this have?"
How about, for starters, the number of open hotspots this could generate?
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I was a Junior High student when they proposed hands across America, and it was stated it was impossible. As I recall it came off mostly intact. I seem to recall some guffaw about a gap or two, but in general it happened.
Question: Can we, the geeks, mobilize as well as that? My own sedentary nature tends to lead me to be pessimistic.
The problem with the pringle cans is that you get too much power out of the can, over the FCC maximum for unlicensed users on the band (ISM 2.4GHz). If you were to get a bunch of Ham radio operators, it might be more feasable.
As I walk through the valley of death I fear no one, for I am the meanest sonova bitch in the valley!
Yes. No. I would think the time and effort could be better spent trying specifically to get broadband (or at least WiFi) net access to rural areas.
Michael C. Hollinger
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but this absolutely would be percieved as the first step towards a public controlled public broadcast venue for news.. and seeing as how the beiggest complaint in politics amongst the general public is the lack of interconnectedness between the east political environment and the west coast equivalent, I would see this as a milestone towards an ultimate goal of broadcasting bills, propositions, votes, general news, as well as the future forms of blogs.. i see this as not friv, but profoundly progressive and long due.
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
A group of amatures has decided to prevent future energy problems in California. The plan is to route extension cords, connected serially, to California from a power plant on the east coast. When asked if the extension cords could handle the force, they said that it wasn't for everyone, mainly a proof of concept. They made no comment to the argument that there wouldn't be hardly any current left in California. They are taking donations of extension cords of all kinds. "Just as long as it has a ground pluggy thing"
Ok, as we all know there are some pretty desolate regions of the US. Now it would be possible to throw a bunch of routers in the middle of the desert, but they would have to be battery powered or something. The most significant problem would be getting everything to work correctly without even a single down router. Assuming each router covers a tenth of a mile, you'd need about 30,000 routers to make it across the US. Dozens will break or have problems every day, so you'll need at least two per site. That means a total of 60,000 roters. At $100 each that brings the total to $6 million. The battery powered routers for the desert will obviously be more expensive though. Also you'd have to stop people from stealing these somehow, which would be a serious problem.
In conclusion, it would be really hard and really expensive to do this, but it is possible.
Creating ex-temp webs like this might assist insurance adjusters and other computer-needing personnel to work better in emergency hot zones... it would be nice if a company out there started manufacturing the "cans" for emergency use and the FCC made some modifications to the rules for emergency usage ... so every little town could have a few "wi-fi" kits in storage to chain up when a hurricane has leveled everything.. you could also throw some authentication mechanisms on the idea and build a quick "emergency VoIP network" the same way.
Just a thought from the thoughtbrew:
www.bigattichouse.com
meh
Something like 70% of internet backbone is owned by half a dozen companies. The RIAA & co are putting increasing pressure on businesses and universities, and backbone providers may be next.
The Government is, frankly, outright hostile to many forms of free expression, and some basic civil rights we've come to take for granted (abortion rights, for starters, never mind the Bill of Rights).
This project may teach valuable lessons about using open standards to form a non-owned, alternative internet backbone.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
invest in some blue chip stock, but I think I'll ivest in some obscure potato chip company instead. :p
As long as he's not obsessed with 802.11x, this is great! For the longer stretches, he should use IR lasers or something that can really throw the bits around.
If he can succeed, the long-term implications are fantastic. Internet will become too cheap to meter. Inexpensive laser and other types of LOS relays will join windmills and silos as familiar rural landmarks. AOL and Time-Warner can eat all of America's shorts. There is nothing to say the same economic forces that may eventually make proprietary software obsolete can't make proprietary networks obsolete too.
The hard part about free wireless has always been the "upstream". If this guy can get a viable continent spanning link, it may go down in history just like the link between... what was it... Duke and UNC? You know, the one that started the internet in the first place. Let's see... we have internet, internet 2, and now internet 3. I can't wait. I think Internet 3 could eventually replace internet 1 and make internet 2 jelous.
Give it the same amount of time we gave that first uucp link.
p.s., I'm surprised my subject line makes it through the filters.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The real world application is, perhaps, psychological: getting people to realize that with a bit of effort each, we can all be networked to each other at high speed WITHOUT paying some company OR government for the privelege of just moving data around using equipment we own and airwaves that belong to everyone.
It depends on what the gain and such is of the antenna. With an omni, maybe, but with a wave-guide cantenna you are probably safe.
See here for details
Besides, I think this is definately more doable that hands across america. With the possible exception of the rockies/cascades etc, just set up some cantenna's, and aim it off into the horizon. With GPS and such, it should be easy to coordinate. A handful of people at each horizon, should do it... How far away is the horizon anyways? I know I can see the buildings in downtown from here, and its like 20 miles from here.
One of the guys with l0pht set up this site in an attempt to accomplish something similar: A LAN-based backbone independent of government and corporate oversight. I waited two years for someone in my area to indicate some sort of interest, but nobody seemed interested. The last time this site was updated was in 2002, so I guess the original author's interest has waned as well.
The point of this post, though, is to provide a link that does a good job of answering why such an independent backbone would be A Good Thing.
Since the FCC fines owners of such devices $1,000 per day per device I don't see thise happening.
So, does anyone want to make a prediction for ping time across 3,000 miles, and grid only knows how many hops? Does anyone know the record for most routers from one end of an IP network to the other today?
I am thinking that you mean the royal 'we' there and are somehow talking for the whole of US society?
Just because your social/political grouping sees it as a basic part of 'life' does not mean that society in general sees it as such, and I would hazard to guess that if it was such an entrenched social defacto standard as you suggest then no government would be concerned at allowing it.
But basically, there is no overwhelming social majority on one side or the other. There are big camps on both sides, with some valid concerns and some crap too. In the middle is the large group who don't consider abortion even an issue until it directly involves their lives, and could most likely not give an honest choice either way.
We can tell where you sit, but you can't tell the world where my opinion rests and have no right to speak on my behalf.
...than if everyone involved with this project tested for their Amateur Radio Tech license, and simply used existing off-the-shelf components with power output several magnitudes greater than consumer-grade 802.11 equipment to do the same thing?
Hams have been communicating digitally in the GHz spectrum for a long time now. Why use inferior consumer-grade equipment to get the job done? Plus, as a licensed ham, you have the permission of the government to modify your equipment as necessary (as long as it falls within the power/interference limits set by the FCC).
Of course, transmitting porn and music would be against the regs, but if it's principle you're after, using amateur radio is just the ticket.
As long as he's not obsessed with 802.11x, this is great! For the longer stretches, he should use IR lasers or something that can really throw the bits around.
Fair enough. Although fiber throws the bits around better.
If he can succeed, the long-term implications are fantastic. Internet will become too cheap to meter. Inexpensive laser and other types of LOS relays will join windmills and silos as familiar rural landmarks. AOL and Time-Warner can eat all of America's shorts. There is nothing to say the same economic forces that may eventually make proprietary software obsolete can't make proprietary networks obsolete too.
Yeah. And if everyone laid fiber to their neighbor's houses and got routers for it, the same thing could happen. That'd be really cool, too, and probably about as cheap. But it's not gonna happen anytime soon.
The hard part about free wireless has always been the "upstream". If this guy can get a viable continent spanning link, it may go down in history just like the link between... what was it... Duke and UNC? You know, the one that started the internet in the first place. Let's see... we have internet, internet 2, and now internet 3. I can't wait. I think Internet 3 could eventually replace internet 1 and make internet 2 jelous.
There's a ping-time issue. The cost of receiving and retransmitting those packets is non-trivial, both in time and in energy, especially if you use WEP. Count on pinging across the network to take minutes. Like I said, laying fiber would be much cooler for free internet. But it's just as not-gonna-happen.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
He is aiming for a July 4th, 2006 first coast-to-coast ping.
Considering the latency, I'd aim for July 4th, 5th, and 6th.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
No more pringles cans.
This would be so much easier in Panama...
Last year, there was an article here about some old AT&T bunkers and towers for sale. While it would be impracticle (if not impossible) to use all of these towers for 802.11 sites, their routes across the country would come in very handy. These maps would give you a good idea of what kind of line-of-sight you could get in various regions.
While I'm at it, here is an excellent site with more AT&T long-line info links:
Towers in Utah w/ good links
The last time this was tried it was a complete success. The American Radio Relay League was delivering messages (about the length of a ping) coast to coast to places the wires didn't run, and they changed communications as we understand it.
The hitches are considerable this time. WiFi range and the line of site behavior of microwaves will be a significant impediment. Hands across America and the ARRL had methods of crossing large uninhabited distances.
I think if they are going to have any chance for bridging this, they'll have to bridge the tough spots with AX.25 using frequencies that carry. I would still consider it a success if 60% of the distance were to be covered with WiFi, and the rest more serious microwave hops, and even some longer waves (the 23cm band has space and decent speed). I can see the ocean from my porch and have a 30 foot high roof If they end up taking a NorthWestern route to the left pond, I'll certainly volunteer.
Best of luck to them.
I was recently involved in a fairly casual discussion of how to create a WAN link between computer labs at two different campuses of a university in Ghana. The main campus, in the capital city of Akra (sp?) has a limited satellite connection to the Internet costing something around a few thousand a month, supposedly. None of the other three campuses have or can afford a similar connection. This isn't a big enough gateway to share WWW access, but a WAN could allow Intranet and Internet-based email, as well as Intranet sites, file sharing, and perhaps even VoIP to augment the poor phone systems.
So the big problem was how to set up this connection. The telco system apparently isn't too good; only around 400 new lines are added per year, so getting ahold of a large number of leased lines would be virtual impossible. Obviously, setting up an independent wired backbone is financially out of the question. So we started toying with the idea of a WiFi link, which seemed like the only possibility.
The only problem is that if we are trying to set up a 200km link (between the main campus and one in the north; I don't recall the name of the city) we would need repeaters in some remote areas without consistent power, not to mention having to plot good line-of-site and build fairly secure base stations. What we realised was that we could attempt to piggyback the existing private cell-phone infrastructure. There is a cell system spanning the north and south, which means a stable backbone, on which we can either rent data bandwidth (probably expensive) or, better yet, on who's repeater stations (probably microwave antennas) we could rent physical space.
Our informal conclusion was that the University should consider renting space on repeater stations for their own WiFi hubs and create a WAN using long-distance line-of-site connections with off-the-shelf, inexpensive WiFi components. Projects like this pave the way to practical, inexpensive applications of WiFi technology.
One way for this to happen would be to bounce the signal off the moon. Earth-Moon-Earth is a proven technology that Amateur Radio folks (de KD4BTC) have been doing for years. Check out this article.
wherever I go, there I am.
Are we talking about a giant, shared, 10mbs pipe across the US that we could all use together? Wow, that would really last for at least 10 seconds. Talk about /. effect....
The routes:
Eastern Section
Central Section
Western Section
Interesting side note: I was looking at the area around my hometown of San Antonio, TX (on the Central map) and noticed a spur of the route leading to LBJ's ranch near Blanco/Johnson City Texas. These tower routes were designed to facilitate cross-country communications for the public but they also had a wartime mission--keeping the President in commo during WW3.
The Midwest, the Rockies, the desert, all of that is going to be financially unviable unless a corporation gets behind it.
I think the only way it will happen is if some ISP/Telco thinks it's a good marketing idea. And in that case they'll probably run it along major highways through those desolate areas.
Advert example: Two Verizon trucks driving towards each other down a desolate road in the middle of the US. Each planting the very last (golden spike) wireless connection on each side. Shows family driving through the middle of nowhere USA with a kid in the backseat surfing the web - "Drive coast to coast wirelessly, Only with Verizon."
Remember FIDO Net? I'm sure some do. Data passed from node to node in store and forward mode across the country using local calls modem to modem. It was way cool in its day. Doing it again with WiFi should be a real challenge but not impossible.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
You are partially correct.... You cannot exceed 1 watt into the antenna. The antenna adds gain to give you a total signal strength. In a point-to-multipoint you can go a maximum of 4W EIRP. In a point-to-point situation you can go a maximum of 8W EIRP. Check out 80211planet.com, fcc.gov, and google for more info (search for EIRP).
LAST POST!!
we just unroll a 4k mile roll of ethernet?
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
that was one example of a network whose structure could handle host disconnects. also freenet, which has redundancy built into its design. and gnutella, as you point out.
all of these essentially use P2P as their structure, but fidonet and freenet remind us that P2P-the-structure has a far wider range of uses than just downloading mp3's. right now the internet dominates "cause it's there" but even its structure was historically envisioned (by some, anyway) as much more decentralized than it is now. as it moves toward centralization it becomes increasingly unsatisfactory for many purposes, and momentum grows to build and use alternative, decentralized structures.
May 10, 2004 ... The day that the golden pringles can finally links the Union Pacific and Central Pacific kazaa servers through 802.11b.
The other bummer is that a pringle can is only slightly better than a loose cable end, as a comprehensive comparision between different antennas by the german c't magazine has recently shown. You should rather use a coffee can with a larger diameter.
Well, if any of you have ever driven across the US, it would be apparent that there is a whole lot of nothing out there. However, note that it is possible to bridge long distances with 802.11.
:)
Take note of the HPWren map. They've got a wireless node 45 miles away from their base tower, and they use off-the-shelf gear operating in the ISM band. In some places they have repeater radios powered by solar panels by day and batteries by night. Surely something like that could be utilized in such a project mentioned in the article, but who would put up the money to set up some of these stations and insure they don't get vandalized or destroyed by bad weather?
Such repeater stations would be required, especially if you want to get that signal to the California coast. We have some, erm, minor obstacles.
Anything is possible with enough thought and money. I have no doubt that under such a project, major networks could be constructed in metropolitan areas. Yes, it can be done with Pringles cans. I have constructed one myself and the gain I get out of it rivals most commercial antennas, except for a parabolic.
The biggest hurdle that this project has to overcome is awareness, getting people out of "that's cool" mode and getting them to do something, bridging the huge distances, and getting the signal over mountains. Other than that, it's a piece of cake
-R
and next up, alaska to tierra del fuego
Wouldn't it be smarter to have towns and cities WAN'd and setup to link with eachother through some sort of Internet service. I cannot see linking the entire country with 802.11b feasible considering you got the Rockies blocking the West Coast.
am i the only one thinking that this will be slow as crap? even if it was 802.11g, its still shared bandwidth, and with that many nodes..
I was born and raised in the Cleveland, OH area (Parma Heights is located on the west side). So in case you were wondering, YES, there is absolutely nothing to do in Parma.
Berto
Standard 802.11b ethernet won't get this accomplished. There's no way. Can a packet ping from the east to west and back again in 255ms? with Wifi?
I don't think so. I think we should observe the way
Amature Radio Operators have ran packet radio stations. We'd need to write drivers that would
emulate a packet radio connection. There's will be
too many hops to implement a 802.11 WiFi solution.
We would have to go with packet switching.
We'd be able to use WiFi hardware, but all the drivers would need to be written to emulate packet switching.
Sell it to them as a cutting edge experiment: publicity, and maybe even a fledgling version of being able to offer passengers internet access, or internet-tracked cargo shipping, or something else.
Many railroads have been there, done that, and gotten many t-shirts in this area. Railroads (along with other ciritical infrastructure companies like utilities and pipelines) have been operating private microwave radio systems for 40 years. Nowadays many of the lightly-loaded routes operate on (non-802.11) unlicensed 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz equipment. One of the major functions of these networks is to support Automatic Equipment Identification (AEI) which allows railroads to track any piece of rolling stock anywhere in North America.
--zawada
In Soviet Russia, the Beowulf cluster imagines you!
If you look at a long-haul fiber map, you'll notice most of the fiber runs the I-10 corridor.
A couple of people have mentioned transiting the Rockies. Not a good idea. Cellular systems don't do it. Living in Western KS, I've found that Cellular systems do not enjoy a two-way flow the length of I-70.
Eastern CO is supported from Western KS, via I-70. In KS, Salina sits at the top of a "T," where I-70 meets I-35. Head South, and I-35 turns into I-45. You get to Houston (which I-10 passes through). Western CO just doesn't have much coverage.
Then there's TX. Assuming you could get solid coverage to Kerville (a little West of San Antonio), it is a _long_ , empty haul to El Paso (ok, you have Junction, Sonora, Fort Stockton, etc). There just aren't that many people in West TX, till you get to El Paso.
Next up, NM, AZ, etc. Hot hot hot. Then, cold cold cold. Not a good environment for unprotected electronic gear. Going to need plenty of local Alternative Energy sources as well.
I know there are plenty of other state-level, middle-of-nowhere link-up issues. I'm just talking about the one's I know something about.
At a minimum, it is going to take the use of the Interstate Highway system (for communication equipment to be set up, and allow easy access to be repaired), and guys with their HAM radio tickets (at least Technician class) to be able to legally opperate equipment with enough grunt. Repeaters don't require call sign ID at regular intervals, I think.
Line-Of-Sight is about 9.2 miles, at Sea Level (IIRC).
Potentially a pretty neat hack.