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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?"

6 of 650 comments (clear)

  1. Uh... by TheShadow · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, I want everything for free too. Give me a break.

    --

    --
    "What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
    1. Re:Uh... by darthtuttle · · Score: 5, Funny

      1) it's always cheaper to run landline for the highest speeds available.

      2) There are great distances between areas where people live. Despite apperances you can't go from DC to Boston through suburbs all the way.

      3) Data has to be served from somewhere, and you have to connect that to everyone somehow. Your not going to do multi Gigabit out of a medium sized Data center let alone the big ones.

      4) I can count.

      6) Even if we got rid of all the companies and did everything as a "community" project people would end up running things and those people would fight for power and the little guy would get charged to much in the end anyway.

      7) Whoops, I can't count.
      8) Have a nice day

      --
      Darthtuttle
      Thought Architect
    2. Re:Uh... by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Funny

      I hope they played good hold music while he was waiting...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. What you are really proposing... by digerata · · Score: 4, Funny

    is global nirvana. It just might solve world hunger, end all wars, and bring us as a species to the 'next level'. I can't wait. spffff in my wet dreams!

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    1;
  3. What I want by ihummel · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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)."

    What I want is all of Bill Gate's money, all of Jeff Bezos's patents, and a quick easy way of getting rid of SCO once and for all (e.g., a tactical nuke).

    I think that my desire is more realistic.

  4. "What I want is..." by NoData · · Score: 4, Funny

    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)

    And what I want is a pony.