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Own the Last Mile
jonabbey writes "Robert X. Cringely's most recent column advocates a radical solution to the network neutrality thicket: create our own last mile infrastructure, rather than paying the telcos and cable companies to use our bandwidth as a lever. From the article: "A model in which the infrastructure is paid for as infrastructure -- privately, locally, nationally, and internationally can create a true marketplace in which the incentives are aligned. Instead of having the strange phenomenon of carriers spending billions and then arguing that they deserve to be paid, we'd have them bidding on contracts to install and/or maintain connectivity to a marketplace that is buying capacity and making it available so value can be created without having to be captured within the network and thus taken out of the economy."
Why not set up a comminity wireless network or check if your neighbour already has http:ghostmodernism.com/
A model in which the infrastructure is paid for as infrastructure -- privately, locally, nationally, and internationally can create a true marketplace in which the incentives are aligned...
Despite the availability of Free software -- both as in beer, and in freedom... the software marketplace remains skewed in favour of corporate giants, patent trolls etc. What incentive would the bandwidth providers have... for practising a transparent and 'fair' bisiness model? How many 'consumers' are technically capable / informed to take up this task? Can't see this model working on either side of the equation...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm probably not getting some subtle nuance, but do not the various wireless nationwide mesh projects pretty much make this a non-issue?
Sure it sucks now; the assinine laws being passed truly suck and all, but with more geographic communities able to talk to each other without using telecom infrastructure, it looks like the interweb has a chance to get back to being the unregulated freedom space it is supposed to be.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
This is the true solution that I didn't think anyone was actually considering. Community wireless is not the answer, it's plagued by many problems, not the least of which being that it's wireless. The internet is a huge international resource, I never understood why a few monopoly-prone corporations were put in charge of those last few miles anyway. It makes little, almost no sense that someone can be a few miles from the internet backbone and be completely subject to a monopolie's whim as to whether or not they can access it.
I'm extremely curious to see what Google does as an ISP, even though they'll only be a local one. I almost think they might be doing it to put themselves in a position to fight legal battles in favor of Google users, though that might be hoping too much even for Google.
Haiku for you!
As optimist as this article is (and adds a nice bashing of Microsoft that should please this crowd), it fails to take in account the other side of the telecomms strategy for "metering the internet". There has been a legislative push to throw so many roadblocks against municipal broadband projects at both the state and federal level, often citing "anticompetive environment" as a justification against them.
Considering the virtual monopoly positions held by most providers in their areas of services, it is apparent they have seen the potential (and threat) of municipal broadband projects to their mid and long term plans for the internet.
"Owning the last mile" is a beautiful vision and expresses the American dream in the digital age...unless you they have already outlawed it in your area.
"To travel the paths of human imagination you have to be willing to unlearn all you know"
The real problem with this idea comes in with people who want access from rural locations or connecting cities across large distances. Who is going to pay the million bucks to get the wiring from the DFW area to Austin?
Development notes at http://devscribbles.blogspot.com
I have one word for you: that's two words.
In the apartment complex I live in, we installed HomePNA equipment that's owned by the complex. As a result, we're paying an ISP only for the hooked ADSL connections and thus have been able to both cut down costs get a faster connections over time. I'm paying $2 a month for a 1 mbit/s connection so this strategy certainly has worked for us. Yes, the total bandwidth (16mbit/s) is shared by everyone participating but this far I've actually gotten that amount of bandwidth every time I tried.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
Leaving a side some comments about the article...
:) (its like the idea "Power to the people").
/. we are geeks, nobody here will say "No!, let the companies own our freedom", of course not. But the average people, In the real world, doesn't give a shit. They pay a regular fee, complain a little about the ISP/telco and still using internet.
:) come-on
I like the idea, but its hard to get it done. The "marketplace" of course has the "power" to own the last mile AND also "we can OWN the world"
We are in
Its more easy to pay some money than get organized, with this "internet thing". (for the most it's not a big deal). Some users already get organized and own more than the last mile, building big internet access communities.
Its good if ALL get organized that way we don't care about the companies business and when they does some nasty thing like start limiting bw or restrict the access to some sites or.... OH! wait they already do that!
BrainlessAnarchist: WE MUST GET ORGANIZED NOW AND OWN THE INTERNET!! it is ours...
In fact, if we build the biggest network ever, it could be a way to give internet access, but then when everybody is on that new wide access network, we will be the ones who internet is connected to... and we can charge the companies with a fee for the permission to sell/offer us something.
PS: "changed the world forever with VisiCalc"
Rock and Roll
While the idea of setting up community networks then buying bandwidth to be shared amongst everyone certainly is appealing to many of us, there are many more people that just wouldn't be interesting. Not to mention, it would be a brutal fight with the incumbent telcos and cable companies. Even once the network is built in said local community, I am sure the telcos would try and rack up as huge a cost for the higher bandwidth lines just because. Now, this would not be a problem if the government was on our side, but lets face it, demo or repub, they both belong to big business. With most of if not all of our government on company payroll, I find it near impossible for community networks to become the norm and not the extremely rare exception that they are now. I hope I am wrong. Brendan
from previous post: many demand corepirate nazi execrable stop abusing US
we the peepoles?
how is it allowed? just like corn passing through a bird's butt eye gas.
all they (the felonious nazi execrable) want is... everything. at what cost to US? not a pretty picture at all. quite infactdead from our viewpoint.
lookout bullow.
for many of US, the only way out is up.
don't forget, for each of the creators' innocents harmed (in any way) there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/US as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile will not be available after the big flash occurs.
'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi life0cidal glowbull warmongering execrable.
some of US should consider ourselves very fortunate to be among those scheduled to survive after the big flash/implementation of the creators' wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate.
it's right in the manual, 'world without end', etc....
as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis.
concern about the course of events that will occur should the corepirate nazi life0cidal execrable fail to be intervened upon is in order.
'do not be dismayed' (also from the manual). however, it's ok/recommended, to not attempt to live under/accept, fauxking nazi felon greed/fear/ego based pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking hypenosys.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
Thanks for that idea Mr. Cringley. Now let me tell you how it would work in the real world.
The telecos would quickly pay for laws and regulations that would prevent people from creating a last mile infrastructure. As an example, look at how the telecos are preventing municipal ISPs and other "community" networks.
You see, it's not that the telecos "need" incentives. They have plenty. They just want to milk every single dollar from both government and consumer. This is similar to how the oil companies operate ( we made x billion dollars last year, but we just can't afford to build any more refineries without government money).
Besides, with the whole tiered internet thinking the telecos have been pushing lately is there really any doubt that they have anything but greed on their minds?
~X~
~X~
From the article: ...
One billion dollars each in seed capital from Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, and Google would be enough to set neighborhood network dominos falling in communities throughout
Wow, now that would be something to see, a biblical prophecy getting it right on the button:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6
If this last mile is how one gets out of the "tiered internet", it presumably means that one gets out of ISP censorship. Government might (in effect) block this initiative, therefore, by requiring anything approximating an ISP to perform basic censorship, wiretapping, etc. to the extent that only a large, established ISP can provide.
I expect that you'll find large ISPs ever-keener to "work with government" to address "common concerns" (as opposed to say real, quantifiable risks) if this took off.
Wikileaks, no DNS
In a sense Microsoft is a lot like the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire's growth and economy was driven by conquering and plundering neighboring regions. Within the Empire they created a sort of safe economic zone where commerce could work and technology could be developed. However, that came at a price, as they tended to destroy everything outside the empire as it grew.
Even though I am not a Microsoft basher -- in fact probably on these boards I would be characterized as a Microsoft shill -- I think this analogy really does a nice job of describing Microsoft's behavior. And it probably also explains why my personal feeling is that, by-and-large, Microsoft has done more good than bad for folks like me (software developer). That's because I'm essentially "inside the empire". No doubt most Roman citizens felt the same way about their government's actions. That said, this analogy helps me to better understand the bitterness and vitriol directed at Microsoft that I witness on places like these boards, as many of the complaining folks consider themselves among the plundered.
Of course if one accepts the analogy, it is tempting to extrapolate what the future might hold for Microsoft. The Roman Empire grew so large that ultimately it collapsed because they couldn't control such a large and disparate entity. I think we may be seeing signs of that collapse in Microsoft as well.
Et tu, Ozzie?
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
We are building a house in a remote, upscale community of 125 houses. The only option out there for access is cable which isn't much of an option as the ISP is small and not very forward looking. I contacted some of the better alternative ISPs in the area in the hopes of finding someone who would be more willing to work with a small community. Most of them said if we can get a commit level of greater than 50% from the community they would bring the service out to us for free (DSL). The DSLAM would be local so everyone would have a fast connection. The ISP is calculating recovery of installation costs in 2.5 years. The people that commit would have to sign a 3 year agreement. Some of you might be thinking that why would someone do that with only 6 months of guaranteed income. The ISPs all said that their customer loyalty rates are higher than average so they are counting on keeping customers for a much longer period of time, plus there isn't much choice in ISPS as there would be in a larger community.
The second alternative which are are looking into is the cost to get the main Telco ISP to drag fiber to us. So far they have speculated that the cost would be around $250K plus we would have to purchase the termination equipment on our end. The builder would be willing to run the fiber from the local demark to each home for free (we pay for the cable). The conservative estimate is that it would take us around 8 years to pay off (at normal monthly cable rates) but we would all have shared access to the fiber.
There is a huge disparity in the costs that the small ISP is calculating for the fiber and what the telco would charge us, I am not sure where that comes from yet but we are looking into it.
The comparison is to road infrastructure, but what makes government funding of roads work are taxes on fuel. Without something like that there is no direct link between use of the capacity and the funding required for that capacity.
...see how wrong they where?
...well..duh...Morse code. Of course, morse code....slow as it is - isn't practical for a world-wide-wireless network with todays demands for broadband and hight troughput, but the Radioamateurs are the ones that carry the solution for nearly every wireless innovation in the world. Who's the first to try out new untested stuff? Radio amateurs, who's the first to utilize it all before it becomes mainstream? Who's do YOU know that communicates today digitally via their own satellites? You may not know anyone - but they're radioamateurs and they're in this world - way ahead as usual - perhaps not old "grandpappy HAM-operator from-way-back" but the legacy he and so many others carried on - lives in us - the younger generation who grew up with bread-board electronics and became engineers, technicians...and yes.. radio amateurs - your average radio-shack hobbyist. You may not know it - even though radio-shack and the likes all over the planet are phasing out old-style electronics - we're still active and inventive.
...Vhf...medium bandwidth ...and UHF to microwave have Mega to Gigabit capability, now we're talking, right?
I'm a radio amateur, don't know what that is? Look up ARRL on Google and educate yourself.
The idea of making an international network predates the Internet, actually way back in time when Samuel Morse invented
Fancy - a little history and a waving finger, but where does that place us? Well - you brought it up to the public and you read it, participated in it - a suggestion to create our own world wide intranet. I say it's a GREAT idea, not new as you can read from this and history - but is it feasible? Well - turn to radioamateurs, call out NOW and get cracking! (and no - that's not cracking, it's a metaphor for get busy!)
Things as they are now:
A world wide wireless Ad-Hoc network. More and more mainboards plus laptops come with wireless adaptors built right in, as you may know already - these are radio transmitters & receivers. A little engineering and these can be modified to support such an idea, heck....you can even use it today without modifying anything but software.
In the radio-amateur world we have something called Packet-Radio. Packet radio can be hideously slow and it can also be really fast, it all depends on the same things YOU depend on...bandwith....and the actual band. A little radio theory for you all: The short wave bands are great for reaching long distances and a relatively reliable connection that can last for hours - worldwide! The shortwave bands shortcomings is that they're not carrying a lot of bandwidth for data usage so we need to be creative. For 20 years ago - no one would have guessed that you could transmit digital Hifi-Stereo radio streams via the shortwave band in a few kilohertz bandwith, but you can - look it up on Google - it's called DRM (no Not Digital Rights Management) But Digital Radio Mondale. This shows you how creative you can get being a radio amateur engineer - and we haven't reached the limits there yet. Now for the more interesting bands - VHF and UHF. These bands doesn't reach very far, but we have higher bandwidth capabilities and it could potentially sport speeds up to an average 56 K modem. 56 K is not very fast, but the good thing about radio is that you can be several users onto several servers using the same frequency but far away from each other...thus you could in fact share a 2 mbit "wireless" line just using packet radio alone because all users wont be onto that same 56K relay! And best of all - it's free, you need a radio-amateur license though.
Ok, 56 K not enough for you even if it's free? How about microwaves? yes - thats what you already use today with your existing wireless equipment - yes even as hight as 5 ghz. If you read my post so far, then you probably have guessed that the microwave distance will be even less...shortwave reaches far..but have low bandwidth
Truth is - it's alre
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Developers already put in streets, sewers, gas and electrical lines when they build subdivisions. Just add fiber to the list. Every development has it's own small central office or headend.
I live in an established community that was around before the internet hype started, so we are stuck right now with the existing wiring infrastructure. However, around me I see new communities going up all the time and I never understand why they don't install fiber to begin with and why these new homeowners associations don't decide to own lines inside of their community and have the ISPs just connect at the front door. Perhaps it has something to do with regulations that the phone company or whomever must own the connection, but I think it would be worth to consider running a second line so that people in your community could have a choice. Hell, I don't get much worth from my homeowners fee at the moment, at least this in my mind would be something I would pay for.
You are too quick to minimize the impact of the introduction of VisiCalc. At the time there was very little serious business software apart from word processing and some basic accounting stuff for accounts payable and receivable that was oriented toward larger businesses. VisiCalc enabled many common calculations and accounting processes to be handled on small personal computers for the first time. This had a dramatic impact on the market for computers and the perception of computers at that time.
I like the idea of finding your own method around a problem. However, the second paragraph that is quoted in the post is about the most asinine thing I have read all week... and that is saying something.
Politics, Life, and More on my Aspiring for the Future
I know this goes completely against the 'American way' but maybe it should be considered. Besides, WE paid for the telco networks, WE subsidize them in taxes that never end. WE have put up with their BS for long enough. The bloated telco's are already facing their demise as communication becomes cheaper and cheaper thru alternative sources, and will eventually be completely free or near to it for the majority.
Let's use 'eminent domain' the right way, not against the citizens, but against the corrupt telcos whose only interest is their own survival and profits - not the consumer.
On the flip side - there is already a company building a free wi-fi network, you share your wi-fi and you get to use everyone elses too - free - or don't share it and only pay a fair $2 a day to use other people's wi-fi hotpsots. Check out: http://en.fon.com/
People who buy service from an ISP aren't just buying raw connectivity, they're buying e-mail service, proxies, some security facilities, tech support and a lot more. Maybe it's a bad deal, but Cringely's $17.42 figure is not an accurate one.
If the companies that own the copper, coax and fibre were to change the way they operate, they could continue to make globs of money AND do better for the customer (better yet, they can make MORE money from the bandwidth hogs downloading over bittorrent)
Here is my 5 step plan:
1.Stop selling/advertising "Unlimited" bandwidth.
2.Give customers a limited amount of bandwidth per month. Once that has been exceeded, they have to pay $x per gig or part thereof over the limit. (which means the bandwidth hogs pay more). Make sure that the monthly fee, the bandwidth you get for that fee and the extra charges are clearly spelt out in the terms of service.
3.Give customers a full open internet. Do not give preferential treatement to (or conversly, limit/throttle) any ports, protocols or networks/machines except where necessary to maintain network security/integrity (e.g. blocking mailservers running on residential DSL/cable/fibre accounts to prevent spam zombies). Do not restrict the running of servers unless necessary to maintain network security/integrity.
4.Make a full range of extra options available and dont make them expensive. Static IPs should be available to ALL customers (including those on "residental" connections) and should be in a different network block to the normal pool of residential dynamic IP addresses. (if they cost a little extra, thats perfectly ok). Also, it should be possible to "pre purchase" extra bandwitdh for a per-gig price that is lower than what you would get charged at the end of the month (so if you are doing a really big file download such as a linux ISO and you think it will push you over the limit, prepurchase the bandwidth to save money). If you dont use the prepurchased bandwidth, it would be forfited at the end of the month.
and 5.Be honest to your customers. (not like all the cable companies etc that will cut you off or cut your speed if you exceed a certain amount of bandwidth but wont tell you what that amount is or how much you have used already)
If US ISPs followed this plan, the bandwidth hogs that download TV shows, movies, XBOX/PS2/PC ISOZ, linux ISOs or whatever else would pay extra whilst the normal users who dont download large stuff wouldnt be subsidising the heavy users anymore.
Of course, this will never happen. Why? Because for the ISPs, its NOT about money, its about CONTROL. One of the things that makes the internet great is that anyone can publish their own origonal content. The internet can be used by garage bands and amatuer film makers everwhere as a way to disseminate their work and get it seen. The internet can be used by bloggers and others to post their own options even if those opinions conflict with the "collective groupthink". The internet can be used by programmers to post and share free code, free software and free ideas.
This is what those in power want to stop. If the ISPs implement tiered internet, you can bet they will use it to make the big guys bigger and the small guys smaller.
Search engines like MSN will be in the high tier and engines like google will be in the low tier. Microsoft.com will be in the high tier whereas sourceforge.net and gnu.org will be in the low tier. Sites like nytimes.com, news.com.au, cnn.com, foxnews.com and abcnews.com will be in the high tier while sites that dont follow the "groupthink" such as news.bbc.co.uk or slashdot.org will be in the low tier. Sites like geocities.com (with all the restrictions like a ban on posting any audio file even if you can prove you own the copyright) will be in the high tier whereas sites that give you hosting without the restrictions (paid or free) will be in the low tier.
And so on.
Now is the time to rise up and fight the large ISPs to keep the internet open.
Fight the push to turn normal people into consumers with no abillity to publish their origonal content. Fight the push to tell us what we can and cant watch on our TVs.
Fight the push to tell us what software we can run on our computers.
Fight the push by the big media co
customer: I am having problems with my internet connection
telco: Well, everything looks good on our side. You need to contact your local municipality.
customer: uhhhh, what's a municipality?
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Free space optics (FSO) have been used to created community networks (free and otherwise). The advantages are: high speed full-duplex connections, no need to lay cable, no need for RF spectrum or broadcasting licenses.
Cost can be a problem, because it's strictly point-to-point, and you need a transceiver at each end of each link. That can rapidly add up to a lot of transceivers. And commercial transceivers are expensive. By comparison, the RONJA device can be made very cheaply, in terms of components costs -- but they take a lot of skilled labor to assemble. Check it --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronja
The good news about FSO costs is, the network can start small and add one node at a time, and not have to pay the full up-front costs of something like laying fiber.
The other problem is that FSO has limited range and is strictly line-of-sight. Depending on terrain, trees and buildings, you may have to be pretty ingenious in placing the transceivers, and you might need towers or repeaters in some instances.
I am looking forward to Wi-Max, by the way. That's another technology with potential to change things.
But can you prove that you own the copyright? If you make a "cover version", a recording of someone else's copyrighted song, then you do not own the copyright. If you write a song and you happen to subconsciously copy part of someone else's copyrighted song, then you do not own the copyright. If you write a song, and it happens to coincidentally match something you heard on the radio a decade ago, then the court will assume that you subconsciously copied it.
Still, which clause of the GeoCities TOS disallows uploading audio files? If you tried uploading your band's MP3 file, and you're sure that the song was original, you may have been TOSsed under 5(f) on grounds of using the patented MP3 format rather than a Free format.
If wireless works then it seems kinda dumb to be digging up earth and laying cable all over the place. Wireless works quite well for me thank you very much. I live in rural Montana outside of town. There is no DSL or cable where I live so I get 125Mb wireless from a tower 20 miles away. The service is great with an always on static IP and the cost is reasonable for our area. Before this my only alternative was dial up and it sucked. I have a Linux SysAdmin/DBA job in town and am on-call for supporting computers spread around 3 continents. Even without GUI stuff dialup to the VPN sucked so sometimes I'd just drive into town. Now I connect via broadband and I'm a happy camper in the country. C'mon G3. We need more energy spent on improving wireless and making it ubiquitous. The last thing we need is political interference.
May all your problems be only technical.
If you ask techies about the issue, they suggest more/bigger/better technology. If you ask business folks about the issue, they suggest pricing and features and rates. If you ask legistlators about the issue, they suggest regulation.
u ters communication.
This isn't exactly any of those as much as PEBCAK. We're leaving the world of computer-to-computer communications behind and it's becoming one of people-using-computers-to-other-people-using-comp
Let me see if I can offer some food for thought --
Within the realm of automobiles and driving, a driver has immediate feedback from how s/he is driving, can see other drivers and how they are driving, has turn signals, horns, and can also see things like traffic jams, ambulances, etc. Even outside of any legal regulations, a given area can develop certain common behaviors among drivers because they will learn from each other, consciously or not, purposeful or not, about what to do, what not to do.
Within the realm of net-usage, there is no feedback for the end users on whether or not how/when/what they are doing on the network is affecting anyone else or what is going on. It's like everyone is driving bumper cars without vision, hearing, or any sort of feedback, and the only control is the gas pedal. You just floor it and hope you bounce around to where you want to go. Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
Without any sort of feedback, no 'rules of the road' or such things like "slower traffic keep right" (for US drivers) can develop. The users can't tell what's going on and adjust. So, various parties are trying to 'help' the users:
Business: "We will make separate lanes for separate speeds, and people will pay for the speeds they want."
Techies: "We don't want separate lanes - we will make the roads bigger until the problem goes away! Or make roads so cheap the users can have their own!"
Government: "We will regulate the roads to keep the users safe from one another."
In all cases, third parties are trying to 'help' the average user because each of them think they know best. Whether or not any of them actually do know best is a secondary issue to the one that each of them probably does know *more* than the average user about what is going on.
If every user had some sort of feedback as to how they were affecting other users, then I suspect that in most cases the users would manage to work things out one way or the other among themselves. Because the user base cannot, everyone is suggesting solutions to take care of the problem without seeking real input from the major stakeholders -- the users, who are simultaneously the source of the problems from their usage of the network taken as a whole.
Regardless of solution chosen or what actually happens, the lack of feedback to the users and user controls (outside of, say, trying to force a web page to (re)load) would suggest that none of the solutions will truly solve the PEBCAK issue because there's no way to really involve the users as a whole in any of the solutions... or, if you will, we tend to call them 'network users', not, say 'network citizens'. (Heck, few ever refer to them as 'people', they're just faceless 'users'.)
'Citizen' suggests a level of responsiblity and participation within the overall process that is not currently possible because they have been insulated from almost all useful feedback about the results of their own behaviors, so they cannot learn/adapt/take responsibility on their own. So various people (techies, businesses, governments) try to help do it for them. Empowering the people doesn't work because without the feedback they can't learn how to treat the extra power to get along with each other. Charging the people more doesn't work because without feedback people can't easily tell if they're getting what they're paying for. Adding more laws doesn't work, because without feedback people can't tell what they're doing at all, never mind if they're doing something wrong.
As such, I find most of the suggestions from various talking-heads well-meaning but tiresome.
WOW was doing this prior. Basically, they had a model of providing the last mile and only the last mile. But they appear to no longer be doing. The funny thing, a number of folks, including myself, have been saying this for years. It is nothing new. The general idea is to make the monopoly go to the lowest level possible. Once that starts, then real competition will happen and we will have loads of bandwidth at a fraction of the current price.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yes, ham radio exists and has lots of new high-tech directions. Unfortunately, for the /. crowd (and even more for the general Internet community), there are limitations to what you (we) can do in ham radio compared with the Internet.
Amateur radio is a licensed service, meaning that a non-trivial (though pretty easy for /.-ers?) exam is required. This will always keep out the general public -- either a good or bad thing depending on point of view. Some folks would like to see licensing diluted to the level of Citizens Band or GMRS, i.e., widely ignored and no technical content anyway, but most hams want to keep up a reasonable entry barrier to ensure some level of motivation and technical and operational competence.
The other point is that the amateur radio service is by law non-commercial, meaning that no one can be paid for providing communications services. There is some debate whether you as an individual ham are allowed to "order pizza" (or use Amazon.com?) using your own radio. Certainly, no business could use the amateur bands. That rules out a very big chunk of Internet traffic.
A lot of computer experimenter work uses WiFi technology - which is an unlicensed mode without the ham radio restrictions. (WiFi frequencies overlap a ham allocation, so you can use WiFi gear as part of a ham licensed network if you want.) There is some neat extreme ham-like WiFi.
With my ham station, I can routinely communicate digitally around the world at 31 bps (keyboard to keyboard)and 50 watts of power, even at sunspot minimum. No ISP, no infrastructure dependencies! It's a gas.
Further reading at www.arrl.org and Wikipedia.
-Martin, AA6E
Fiat Lux.
End-user ownership is a cornerstone of a proposal and a more recent white paper by a committee of IEEE-USA. See
. asp
/ docs/Gigabit-WP.pdf
http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/positions/broadband
and
http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/committees/ccip
The fact is that the US is being dumbed down with respect to broadband technology. The Washington Post recently had an article stating that Koreans feel like they are going back to the past, telecommunications-wise, when they come to the US.
Real broadband is gigabit or better, bidirectional, to the end user. Ownership by end-users may be the only way we can achieve it. Content and bandwidth should be separated, with nobody other than end users allowed to provide both.
"if you're truly serious about building a huge global network that we all could use - free from all commercial activity . (btw. did you know that one of the license requirements is that radio-amateur traffic never must be used for commercial traffic?)"
Yeah well, that's probably the single thing which turns me off from the idea of packet radio - that, plus the no encryption rules. I understand why they have the rules, but it means that you couldn't use it as a replacement for a general purpose connection. No browsing Amazon or eBay, no browsing datasheets if you're designing something for commercial use, etc. You might not even be able to browse web pages in general - unless you're pretty good at blocking banner ads. No encryption means I can't use it for remote SSH, regardless of whether it is noncommercial. The only real use for it, I suppose, is remote telemetry...and at the moment, I don't really have a project that needs that.
Just curious, but is there any form of cheap (probably low-bandwidth, geographically limited, or short-range) spectrum that could be used with encryption or for commercial purposes?
*whoosh*
They might let you do it. "Sure, you five neighborhoods here can run all of your own cables, build your own infrastructure, but before you connect to *Bell, Verizon, Comcast...whatever, we're going to require site inspections by our people to make sure everything is done correctly and poses no danger to our equipment/network." Of course, those site inspections will be very, very expensive.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
I'm a radio amateur, don't know what that is? Look up ARRL on Google and educate yourself.
You might be surprised at how many people around here understand or are involved in the hobby. Just saying, you're probably not blind-siding us with the technology.
Err, right, but not all of us live in the middle of nowhere where we have a 20 mile line of site to a wireless communications tower. I've got trees, houses, even large buildings and hills between me and major communications centers. I'd need to construct a 90 foot tower in my back yard to clear all these obstacles... I don't think my homeowners' association would approve of that hillbilly broadband tactic.
First off, we already own the last mile. That's why its called a "public right of way." Just like a public park, it belongs to all of us. The problem is that our pussy politicians (especially the Republicans) aren't asserting our rights to it. Companies using the right-of-ways are being permitted to tie the associated services with other more expensive and more restrictive services that aren't associated with the right-of-way. Want that to change? Vote Democrat. They're not perfect, but they do believe in actually regulating the companies that consume public resources.
Frankston points out that we build and finance public infrastructure in a public way using public funds with the goal of benefiting economic, social, and cultural development in our communities. So why not do the same with the Internet, which is an information infrastructure?
Because:
a) Networking technology continues to undergo rapid change.
b) Even the experts don't understand the 50-year requirements very well.
Public infrastructure projects work OK when the technology is stable and well understood. Like roads and bridges. They're a disasterous sinkhole for cash the rest of the time. That's why the money disappeared. 20 years from now when half the politicians are folks who grew up with the Internet and the networking experts can clearly articulate an infrastructure that with reasonable maintenance will remain appropriate and cost-effective for 50 years, then maybe we can look at it as a government infrastructure project.
In the mean time, we should assert our rights to the public right-of-ways. The price of access should be that the companies which use it don't get a unilateral choice in how the resulting products are sold.
The cost per fiber drop, according to Bill's estimate, is $1,000-$1,500 if 40 percent of homes participate.
There have to be some crazy assumptions behind that. Taking 12 strands for a mile with no stops is $15k in ideal circumstances. In downtown DC its $175/foot. If your ISP is not the phone company then there's about a 90% chance that its nearest office is more than 10 miles away. Even for the best case the numbers don't compute... And that's without considering the cost of maintenance and equipment to light the fiber.
Fiber works for the phone company because they multiplex it at about a 16:2 ratio within a few hundred yards of your home and then trunk that cable back to an office that's within about 3 miles. Even then they're banking on your purchase of phone, Internet and TV at $150/month to recoup the cost over the next 10 years.
$1500/customer? That's off by at least an order of magnitude. $1500 might cover the raw cost of the cable itself, but that's about it.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Another alternative would be to do what the ISP I am with here in australia does.
I get 20GB a month download quota and if I ecxeed it, I get throttled back to 64kbps speed untill the end of the month.
What I am really saying is that US ISPs are finding out that they cant offer "unlimited" and get away with it because of all the p2p users etc. And so they want to solve it by blocking or throttling p2p and other things when the better solution is a user pays model which means that the people who are downloading from bittorrent/p2p/etc 24/7 pay more for their internet than people who use it less.
Dont discriminate on the content, protocols, ports or networks. Discriminate based on the customer and make the bandwidth hogs pay more (or make them get throttled back if they use too much bandwidth).
Well I live in hilly, tree country too but it can be done. Where there's a will there's a way. The first time I tried for wireless I was in a hill shadow behind a tower only 2 miles away. Now there are lots of towers. I've gone looking for them and have had a hard time seeing them as they are discreetly placed. There are some houses strategically located on a ridge with a view to town. Before the commercial wireless solution became available I was thinking about establishing a T1 in town and approaching a neighbor to create a network of community access point. If someone is not very community minded they could be enticed with free broadband. Even in metropolitan areas antenae can be discreetly placed on house tops. The day is coming when there will be no wire and very little fiber to the home. It's mostly a matter of will and politics not technological constraints.
Yet we manage to accomplish more or less exactly the same thing with road infrastructure, without having five companies running their own roads to every house, then charging the house owners for access.
Federal highways, state highways, local highways, private access roads. That's four.
Sales tax (on the car). Federal, state and sometimes local gas taxes. Excise tax (ownership/property tax on the car) in some places. Driver license renewal fees, parking meters/permits/tickets, speeding tickets. Those are only the taxes and fees DIRECTLY related to vehicles; I didn't count federal income tax (which goes to highway subsidies for the midwest), property taxes, etc...but what were you saying about "not charging for access"?
Please help metamoderate.
Yet we manage to accomplish more or less exactly the same thing with road infrastructure, without having five companies running their own roads to every house, then charging the house owners for access.
It's not that hard to design a system after that model, with specific interchange points on a local level.
The last solution in the world I want to see is a copy of the road system. Yes, I'll even take an ISP monopoly over a government monopoly. The second you give the government a hand in anything, you do two things.
First, they have heavily unionized workers that need to eat a still living baby before a dozen witnesses, each of which have to fill out a stack of papers agreeing to what they saw, before you can fire them. Look at the MBTA (that would be Boston's subway system) and compare it to your favorite airline. Do both have problems? Sure. Are there good people in both organizations? Yes. Does the MBTA have roughly a hundred times more service providers who would sooner scowl at you and tell you to fuck off then offer a smile? Absolutely. When the government does anything, it is unionized up the ass such that ever your absolutely worst workers can not be fired. Airliners have unions, but they are no so powerful that you can't toss an under performing employee. The customer service at current ISPs is pretty low. I can only think in horror how far the service would find a way to drop if it was government run.
Second, the government is horribly inefficient. Yes, your government services are often "free" in that you don't have to pay them when you use the service, but they are not free in that the amount you have to spend on taxes is astronomical. Government organizations are almost universally inefficient. My girlfriend works in a charity providing care to homeless and the mentally ill. She lives in dread of the days she needs to go to the social security offices in Boston. It always takes hours to even get in to see people. Once in you enter a bureaucratic hell that will almost certainly cost many more hours of your life. My girlfriend is always a little disturbed when some comes home from the social security office because she wonders how in the hell a mentally disabled or simply order person could possibly navigate such a government nightmare. All of that waste has a cost. The result is that only a tiny fraction of what is paid into the system via taxes ever actually reaches a human. Most of the money is pissed away in the bureaucracy.
Third, you kick open the door to regulation and censorship. Do you REALLY want the FCC to fuck with your internet connection more then it does? The FCC throws a hissy fit over seeing Janet Jackson's boob with a pasty over the nipple. You can't say fuck or cunt on broadcast TV because it is some mortal sin that results in million dollar fines. Fuck that fucking shit. I want to keep the FCC as far away from my internet connection as I possibly can. I don't doubt that they will try to regulate the Internet more in the future and probably succeed. That said, I don't want to throw the door open and invite them in to do it by hand over control of ISPs to the government.
My point is this. Giving this power over to the government solves nothing. You trade one slow and expensive institution for an even slower, more expensive, and far more likely to regulate and censor you into dust institution. You will end up spending more for vastly inferior service (if that is even possible to imagine) that will almost certainly be regulated into the ground. The government isn't going to do it cheaper or faster. They are going to do it slower at higher cost with vastly inferior customer service. I don't like the current system, but I certainly don't want to replace it with something worse. Swapping corporate ISPs for government ISPs is like deciding you don't like Bush and swapping him from Hitler. It isn't a solution.
The reason ISPs don't generally want you to share your connection with the rest of the world, or even the rest of your neighborhood, comes down to two things. First off, they charge you a residential rate at a certain speed with the expectation that the average consumer will use an average small fraction of that actual capacity. You may have 4mbps of downstream, but the average consumer won't use all of it, and in most cases, won't even get close. This means they can actually offer you 4mbps and you'll have it available for those brief moments when you want to download that huge file quickly.
Once you start sharing your connection outside of your household, you increase the average bandwidth that gets used for your connection. Granted, on a case by case basis, this doesn't amount to much, but if they allowed it for one, they'd have to allow it for everyone, and eventually that would cut into their bottom line. Many ISPs DO allow to to purchase a resellable connection, where you can hook as many computers up as you like and you can, well, resell the bandwidth to your neighbors, if you want. You'll also pay at least 5 times as much for the privelage, or so has been my experience. The porch light analogy doesn't work either. That would be the equivalent of me downloading an email, saving it to my network, then having someone via wifi access that saved email, which the isp would certainly be ok with. The porch light doesn't use more electricity if someone else is utilizing the glow, but someone sharing your wifi connection does use more bandwidth.
The second issue is one of liability. With a simple "your connection, your responsibility" system, any problems are your problems. If someone using your wifi creates a problem, the isp doesn't want to have to expend resources determining who's at fault, nor do they want to get involved in determining who's legally responsible should law enforcement ever get involved. It's much easier to just say, it's THAT house right there, go get them. If they ALLOWED you to share your connection with the world, then they'd be put in the uncomfortable position of having to help determine the exact source of the issue.
As for co-oping a neighborhood, good luck with that. I've made inquiries in the past for such a project, and people are generally not interested. They MIGHT be interested after the service is already in place, but as long as there is any type of broadband available, you'll be unlikely to find more than a small handful of willing participants, and certainly even fewer willing to pony up any money in advance. It's one thing if there is NO broadband available and there's enough people in the community who want it, you could be reasonably assured of a return on your investment. But the installation is an unrecoverable cost. You'll spend a small fortune putting in the lines, and networking the neighborhood, and just hope you bring in enough revenue to cover the costs of the loan payments, let alone pay someone to stay on call 24/7 to fix physical problems with the network and field calls from morons who can't figure out how to get their email. You'll need at least $3000-4000 a month in revenue just to cover the operating expenses, over and above whatever the upstream provider will charge, which is not likely to be cheap, especially if you're expecting to use the capacity of that fiber.
I'm not saying it's a bad plan, overall. In the long run, it has a reasonably good chance of success. But, as with any business, there's also a reasonably good chance of fantastic and dramatic failure. You'll want to offer more than just basic internet service though. You'll need a full range of extras. Integrated VOIP, a license to offer streaming TV channels, perhaps a blanket agreement to the RIAA & MPAA to distribute digital music freely within the confines of the neighborhood.... legally, SOMETHING that would give you an upper edge over any local competing provider, besides just speed, because, lets face it, the guy who just checks his email won't really care about that anyway.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Assuming we're talking about America, what you're talking about is becoming a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier). The idea is you rent the ILEC's copper pairs and provide your own DSL/phone service. Companies do this all the time... what's the question?
Slashdot has carried very little news on the deluge of WiMax products announced this year, which make Cringely's article look behind the times by at least 5 years. Normally, he's the first to advocate wireless, so I'm puzzled why he'd pitch this idea now. He ought to look into the spectrum federally allocated to schools, which the schools unwisely license to telcos, and how combined with WiMAX that spectrum could truly liberate communities, without a trip to the bank.
Dailywireless.org is the best source for WiMAX news. Every day is an eye-opener. Sometimes every hour.
In the UK we have an ISP called the the Phone Co-op, which is a consumer co-operative owned by its customers and run solely for their benefit.
They used it, and now they charge us for it. Money that should have been given to towns and cities went to corporations. I love America.
Ummm... if you have ever lived in a totally corrupt one-party political machine city, lower income areas with poor infrastructure (the people who are the least likely to be able to pay a lot of money to the telcos for broadband), are also the places where those grants would essentially go straight into the pockets of the local political machine and not help anyone at all.
The idea that the government is somehow less greedy or exploitive than the telcos is just silly, and the idea that the government doesn't charge it's customers is just silly. Government is simply a profit making corporation that can legally kidnap or kill people provided that people in silly costumes perform the proper rituals. Community ownership might work in small towns and suburban cities (where I suspect the vast majority of Slashdot users never venture out of), which are simply not old enough or big enough to have a deeply entrenched political machine, and are not big enough that people can't leave... but community ownership is just not an option to those who would benifit most by it. Dump a billion dollars for "data infrastructure" into Detroit, and the only thing it will do is make a lot of city councilman and their friends very rich.
The telcos, while pretty damn greedy, can actually be prosecuted for some of their behavior (which is virtually impossible with politicians in a one-party system). There is actually something barely resembling a market for their services (unlike with cities). I can tell you from first hand knowledge, than in large old cities, most people have a lot more power with even a big telco company than they do with their local city government.
It wasn't the Internet that killed amateur radio (the data side of it, not long-distance HF, that's still going strong).
It was government licensing restrictions that killed it, idiotic things like not being allowed to encrypt our data links because the authorities wanted the content of transmissions to be visible to them. They didn't care that this made our data systems open to every script kiddie under the sun, nor that lack of privacy rendered it largely worthless for personal utility comms.
Amateur data could have been great as a secondary "internet" (small 'i') hooked into the public Internet to give radio amateurs extra reach, but that whole concept died utterly once it became clear that the whole range of Internet traffic was barred from being transmitted (and I don't mean just pr0n). When you can't browse your home mail because private info is visible to all and because its content may contravene the rules, the whole thing becomes useless.
So it died as a potentially useful personal/community data service. Big pity, but it's not the first time that regulators have destroyed something.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Cringley's figures are accurate. Please check out these outside plant costs from Utopia Net, the largest municipally owned fiber project in the United States.
http://www.utopianet.org/business_case/costs.htm
In the great state of Utah (minus NewSCO), of course.
I have proposed a similar idea as Cringely. The difference is I take more regulatory approach to the question, to avoid the scenario you describe.
As much as I hate regulatory solutions, I think there is a common problem across the entire trade spectrum: what should be two separate concepts and transactions, the demand for goods and services, and the delivery of those goods and services, when that delivery depends on shared resources and creates a natural monopoly, is currently normally combined into a single regional provider. This applies to your power, your gas, and to a lesser extent nowadays, your landline phone service as well.
I think we should make it illegal to be both the content provider and the channel provider when the channels must be a shared resource. This would apply to any and all trade scenarios.
So you could demand from your power company that you only want energy from a company that uses wind to generate its energy. Of course, you can't control that the electrons that flow to your home came from wind, but you can control that the dollars you spend go to that company instead. This allows the last mile markets to all be heavily regulated, where it's impossible to have any competition, and puts market pressure on all the actual goods/content providers to compete for your dollars without being locked in by the last mile.
Yes that would be a lot of work, and I'm sure there are gray areas. But it's a start. And I think adoption of such a law could become complete across the spectrum within a decade.
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
Those of us with QWest DSL, particularly those of us who opted out of MSN and use a local ISP, are certainly interested in what the new service agreement coming in mid-November will bring. Rumours range from a lock-in by MSN to a ban on vanity web servers to download limits to all of the above since it is an agreement to a fluid agreement. For good and bad, I can see the last mile becoming a wifi network something like other coops.
Right, What of the Romans ever done for us? Besides the roads, sanitation and commerce?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
One of Amateur Radio's major problems is that it is non-commercial. A lot of what is done and I do on the Internet would violate the FCC rules. I couldn't buy a book from Amazon or even send an email to work saying I was going to stay home sick.
"Just curious, but is there any form of cheap (probably low-bandwidth, geographically limited, or short-range) spectrum that could be used with encryption or for commercial purposes? "
In the US, your best bet might be the unlicensed frequencies: 902-928MHz, 2.4xGHz and 5.2-5.8GHz. The upper ones are also used by 802.11a, b and c. Nothing prevents you from using them similarly. But please be respectful of other users in those bands.
Oh, cheap = free in this case; low-bandwidth could be up 300Mbps (Orthogon); short-range could be up to 80 miles if you get the antenna high enough.
What good is that, even if they let us own the last mile, if they restrict the content? Tipper Gore ring a bell?
I think this analogy really does a nice job of describing Microsoft's behavior. And it probably also explains why my personal feeling is that, by-and-large, Microsoft has done more good than bad for folks like me (software developer). That's because I'm essentially "inside the empire".
.NET coding for business scraps. If nothing else, it's a steady life. If you're the right type of pig, you might even grow to enjoy the lifestyle. Get too big, however, and you're a hot dog.
Actually, being a third-party developer in the Microsoft world is a lot more like being a pig on a factory farm than a citizen in ancient Rome. They feed you well, keep you in a confined little intellectual space, and bore you to tears with stable life of
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Low power, 20 mile range. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMax Seperate but relatedly, I think mesh networks are the only way out from under the yolk.
"The internet is a collection of networks. "It" doesn't exist, per se. We only see it as a system because it behaves as one - but it's not like it's some natural resource that copper providers are keeping us from."
You're right that it's not a naturally occuring resource, but I don't think you're right that it doesn't exist. It is, to borrow a phrase from the Searls/Weinberger piece World of Ends, "the Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement..." or, perhaps more precisely, a lot of agreements.
This isn't too different from a lot of other things that don't really exist except as shared agreements. Any state entity, or democracy, or rule-of-law in general fall in this category. Money falls in this category. The concept of property rides a thin line between roots in human psychology and this category.
And this leads to one other thing you said that's not correct. All the things I mentioned above can simply cease to exist if enough people -- or sometimes a few key people or organizations -- renege on the agreement. Most of them continue because it's of high value to everyone to do so, but periodically, you find people breaking the agreements. And in most cases, the rest of us respond vigorously by martialing the resources and forces of those who believe in these agreements and are willing to play by the rules, because the loss of those things would be a huge cost.
The telcos are key. They could in fact be key enough that their reneging on the agreement that's constituted the net for the last 5, 10, 20, and 30 years could possibly damage the agreement, for no clear benefit other than additional profit taking beyond what's already a profitable business.
And while their resources make up an essnetial portion of the net, it's not the only one, nor in some sense should anyone get the idea the internet belongs to them. Even "their" pipes aren't even strictly theirs -- they've received millions in tax breaks, special easements and rights to operate, and in some cases outright grants from the various levels of the government to build those pipes -- but beyond that there are thousands if not millions of other participants in the agreement that constitutes the net who've create the software, hardware, protocols, and other inventions that made it possible. There's really no question that they've no inherent right to make changes to the agreement on their own, and absolutely no right to make changes protected by law or other means of avoiding backlash or consequences. And there's little question that the benefits of the current agreement are proven, while the benefits of their proposal seem to have little forseeable consequence beyond further personal profit at the expense of other participants.
The only question is whether we should respond as vigorously as we would when other valuable agreements are threatened.
Tweet, tweet.
Mo' like pwn the last mile... heh, heh, I gotta write that one down.
-- Black Mage
The Roman Empire fell because they were too busy hiring and firing hoards from beyond their borders to fight each other.
Microsoft will fall when they make an alliance with Linus Torvalds to fight Steve Jobs (wait, this already happened in reverse...!) and they don't keep up with the tribute payments. Everyone wants MS to play nice with open source software and support standards, but those are the barbarians that will destroy Ro^H^H Microsoft.
Pax Microsoftus, it's the only way the Empire can survive.
Get your Unix fortune now!
To begin an argument that the internet, its infrastructure and its service providers on top, should be managed by the government begins by looking at another feat of the government arguably one of the greatest wonders of the modern era - the interstate highway system. Initial estimates cannot begin to measure how the interstate highway system has spawned billions if not trillions of dollars in the economic wealth of the United States. A system in which on every exit, capitalism is freely excercised as both large and small business take advantage of the rapid and ease of transportation. Yes, undoubtedly maintaining this infrastructure is quite expensive, but to allow private enterprise or even state governments to maintain such a critical asset to the American economy would only become a set back to the economic greatness of this country. Similarly, the next great advancement and opportunity for capitalism to spread is the internet and why the government should own this infrastructure and through taxation of public companies that benefit from its service make the internet free for all citizens.
My argument rests on the following points:
As this infrastructure increases its important within the American economy it also becomes the target of cyber-thieves and terrorists. As such in order to protect the majority of society the need to ensure the internet infrastructure is safe from attack as well as to protect citizens from being exploited by clever thieves is an expensive burden that society must take. At the same time, the constitutional rights of citizens to use this as mechanism of freedom of speech must be maintained. Does privitization guarantee this safety? How does the government encourage innovation if there is no monetary incentive to do so?
Let us look at other examples in the world in which because of the privatization of our communication infrastructure the American economy has suffered at hands of other countries who don't have the baggage hindering innovation. Without a doubt our wireless infrastructure is this country is years behind the rest of the world such as China and Japan. Only recently as cellphones have begun to proliferate have large telecoms shifted gear and began investing in our wireless infrastructure mostly driven by technology created overseas. As this technology advances we still see limitations in service between telecom companies as simply driving across one's own city, you may experience outages and/or leave the area covered by your cell carriers service. Wouldn't it be nice if you could purchase a cellphone from any vendor of your choosing and it would function on any network? If the government owned this infrastructure it could force companies to adopt standards that favor consumers. Would we have digitial television had the government not forced the broadcast companies and television companies to adopt the new standard?
Companies have repeatedly demonstrated in the past the reluctance to spend money on infrastructure or innovation unless given authority by the government to mo
Without that restriction, many countries would never have allowed their citizens to operate amateur radio stations. It may seem like paranoia to the average slashdotter, but amateur radio has only become as widespread as it has because it is transparent and easy to monitor. It's also why many countries have third-party and commercial traffic restrictions, so amateur radio wouldn't be perceived as a threat to state-owned telecommunications monopolies.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I like the general idea. And my first thought reading the /. summary was about how phone companies used to own even our phones, and that's changed to where they only own up to the box.
I'm curious about practicality, though. It's very easy to see how this already works in some apartment complexes. It's even easily conceivable in condominiums and certain neighborhoods where a neighborhood association is already involved in managing the group buying power.
On the other hand, I live in a neighborhood without such an association. And with our city government, there's about an equal chance of this thing being run really right, or really, really wrong.
And I know some folks out between cities, for whom the "last mile" may really be several miles.
So, how would I go from just owning up to the box on the outside wall to having a share in ownership of a neighborhood pipeline?
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Your homeowners' association may not like it, but they can't do shit about it. CC&R's restricting antenna height have been ruled invalid every time they've been challenged. As long as the antenna is built safely, and is on private, non-shared property you would be fine.
""Robert X. Cringely's most recent column advocates a radical solution to the network neutrality thicket:"
No Cringely, that's not radical. Radical would be a point to point communications with no inbetween. Untracable (whomever you're talking with will know your end-point naturally), uncrackable (end-point nonwithstanding), unstoppable (cut what? jam what?).
YHBT
I have one word for you: that's two words.
Never seen Reservoir Dogs, I take it?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
There was a time when radio amateurs had the privilege of communicating with each other anywhere they wanted. Now everyone can.
There also was a time when packet node BBS were an interesting way to disseminate information. The internet is now a much larger and (in general) faster source. AFAIK here in Europe packet is dead, or as good as.
Amateurs are people both interested in communication and technology. The internet offers both. Some hard core DX'ers will go on, as will some hard core home brewers. But the 'casual' amateur is indeed killed by the 'net, imho.
73's
Telco's and ISPs essentially run the internet on their routers and switches. They pay engineers to maintain, repair and upgrade the system 24/7 365. The ISPs and Telco's are also shelling out billions of dollars for these infrastructures just for the WAN equipment alone. Does Frankston think that Cisco makes products for free? or that all of the CO techs are just willing to work with out pay to replace the (obviously free repeaters, MUXes and fiber nodes) at all times of the day and night for no pay? His suggestion that $17.42 a month is just unrealistic and does not account for everything that happens to an ISP or a telco durring even an average year.
Think about all of the phone lines that have to be restrung after Katrenia or after any hurricane. Now imagine the damage that ice storms, tornados, earth quakes, farmers and builders back hoes (fiber cuts happen way to often because some idiot digs with out calling the telco first), train derailments (since alot of fiber runs next to rail lines), floods, fires, car accidents (that take out telephone poles), urban mining (where someone decides to pull down some phone line to sell it for the copper) and a dozen other problems that causes the need for very costly repairs. $17.42 a month isn't going to be able to pay for that. Or to get fiber to the middle of no where West Virgina or the millions of other homes that cannot get high speed access even today.
Kollin
Why not have it totally publicly-controlled, and let the companies bid to install and supply? Sort of like, ohhh, the highways? Let the federal government have the backbone, and city and county own the local?
Oh, that would be *so* nasty to the poor phone and cable companies CEO's, they wouldn't be as rich as they are now....
On the other hand, *all* contracts would have *automatic* punitive clauses for failure to fullfill contract specifics. Otherwise, you'd have a situation like Austin, TX, a dozen years ago, when the cable company DID NOT UPGRADE THE CABLE, set up a strike to try to break the union, then had the gall to tell the city that they should renew their contract, and this time they'd upgrade the cable....
mark "I do think that Lucy van Pelt was the CEO, and Charlie Brown mayor"
Couldn't this be done by means of an opensource collaboration project?
a)Start a site..ask for (hopefully really smart) volunteers to sketch out a hierarchy of decision makers.
b)Decision makers map out the US, budget the project, find suppliers, and schedule suppliers to go block
by block installing. All payments sent to a central nonprofit corp which distributes it back to the people laying the fiber
c)Develop software for logging on, bugzapping, etc.
Heck, if Firefox can be built, anything can!