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Do We Still Need Telcos (and ISPs)?

Posted by Cliff on from the beyond-their-effective-lifetime dept.

eraserewind asks: "Are telecom providers and ISPs going to continue to be necessary in the future? Why are we all paying subscriptions for communicating? What I want is a global extremely-high-speed ad-hoc wireless data & voice network, where the only entry cost is a mobile phone (or newtork card or whatever). Devices communicate peer to peer, or routed via other people's idle devices. Remember there is no subscriptions, so don't expect to piggy-back on someone's paid for DSL bandwidth. What are the technological barriers? What kind of protocols would you need? What hardware advances? How would you solve problems of geographic isolation? Are there theoretical, political or economic reasons it couldn't work?"

4 of 650 comments (clear)

  1. Oh My God! by SwedishChef · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What in the world is a question this stupid doing on Slashdot?

    --
    No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
  2. Nonsense by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What I want is a global extremely-high-speed ad-hoc wireless data & voice network, where the only entry cost is a mobile phone (or newtork card or whatever)

    Yes well, what I want is a brand new Ferrari for the price of a used Skoda.

    What is that POS article anyway ? do you view your ISP as an unnecessary maffia-like toll to get online ? who do you think runs your outgoing and incoming mail server, your news server, the box that serves your homepage, the dhcp box that gives you an IP when your DSL modem connects, the DNS server, link you up to the backbone ... And no, even if you could do it yourself, you wouldn't want to.

    You don't want IPSs ? that's easy : be your own ISP : get a T1, get all the hardware, configure it all and after you're done, well, you're your own boss on the inurnet. And most likely you'll be so broke you'll have to sublet your services, like an ISP.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  3. Re:Uh... fsck your money by smokin_juan · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What's so impossible about free? What's so impossible about technological advancement without a monetary system? Why is it so hard for people to understand that money is just as ficticious as government?
    I can only guess that if you're born with your head in your ass that you'd think that's the way the world is and you'd carry on just so.
    There is no FREEdom without free. I guess we'll all carry on just so.
    And fuck you for it you godamn dumbasses.

  4. Troll requirements by pkinetics · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Can a /. article be flagged TROLL???