I have discussed this with technical people a lot, and the basic conclusion, to solve all problems, is the government should take back static location broadcasting (home, work, etc...), give every one a sattelite dish, and make up the money with sales for the left over spectrum. From here, broadcasters might be given permission to run on one channel accross a large area, like a country, and they can then put in low power re-broadcasting stations on this channel as they see fit. This works with radio too.
There would also need to be a government body controlling broadcasting space on particular satellites.
So, now we have 75% of the problem solved, but what about time zones? and local area broadcasts?
Easy, satellite technology is at the point where they now can choose what you see when you point your dish at the satellite, depending where you are on the surface of the planet. I know that the current Australian Optus satellites split signals to an extreemly fine point, where you can watch one picture on one side of your house, and it changes to the other side of your house, and I belive that there are more than 10 regions like that around Australia.
The only other problem I see if getting the signals up there if you have 10 regions on one satellite, each taking up 35mb/s of bandwidth, that's 350mb/s to get up there, and I believe that laser link technology has solved most of that already.
On the other hand, this problem will go away within the next 50 years, there will be an invention that will open up communications bandwidth, I just don't think it will be using the electro-magnetic spectrum that we currently use.
Because a propper SDR would have a dedicated processor, and that is why software defined modems are crap, if they used an internal processor, and DSP, software modems might actually be good!
Well, I am not directly involved with SDR tech yet in ham radio, but I understand the tech, and when I have the time, I will get involved. Anyway, here is the link: http://www.tapr.org/sdr/
So, any hams that want to get involved, there is a start, I know I will be some time in the next 12 months, I'm really hanging out for a HF version, or maybe even a 6m one, maybe I should design one...
When you type those commands, you need internet connectivity, which, in turn, would cost money. In some places the internet would cost you nothing, but in places stuck in the ancient world of modems, and high priced ISP's, we get charged over 19c/Mb (most of the time that is when you go over the download limit, avg. on modem is about 300Mb).
But, I will concede that some ISP's out there give a lot of bandwith for very little, but I still believe that if you wanted to measure the cost of Linux, how much you pay for the cd's is only the start.
What the media has done is just follow the lead of the FBI, and the virus companies. I saw late last night an interview on a current affairs program, where some virus expert was watching internet bandwidth changes during the day, and you know what? internet bandwidth went up a tiny bit at about 1pm AEST, let me think... Lunch time??? - I rolled over laughing.
Anyway, the FBI are making a big thing about this because it makes them look good, think about it:
FBI PR GUY: Isn't something supposed to be happening with this virus at the start of the month?
TECHIE/GEEK: It's only going to start spreading itself, nothing major.
FBI PR GUY: (Running to press room) Oh No! It's going to start spreading itself again, we must warn everybody.....
And you know what's even funnier, the FBI took credit when they said that it was their intervention that stopped a major catastrophy from occuring on the internet. Maybe they're just trying to justify those new jobs they just created (Yes, they are DMCA related, but a most stupid peop^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H americans would think they are the same).
And just before you start ranting at me, just remember what date this virus begins to become active again (00:00 21/*/*).
(PS. I don't mean to imply _all_ americans are stupid, think of the poor central and south americans in Mexico and Brazil, oh, and those in the minor percentages on the northern part.)
Re:Similar in the UK several years ago
on
SMS vs. E-mail?
·
· Score: 1
They (the mobile phone providers) were told they had to here in Australia:)
Before you dismiss my answer, read this comment through.
Answer: Frame Buffer.
Why is that the answer?
The Linux kernel frame buffer currently will do not only standard graphic mapping, but will also do accelerated function on certain cards, for example, Matrox cards.
At my last check, not all accelerated functions were implimented, and there was a push for a _common_ set of kernel functions so that accelerated features for all video cards would work in a common fassion, which, for example, XFree would use. This is why XFree still works better with a card driver, rather than the fbdev driver.
And, if your not satisfied with XFree still, qt embed uses the linux fb, or, you could learn c and/or c++, and be able to form a better opinion on what needs to be done, and maybe even help out.
Well, currently we are going through a solar sunspot maximum, which occurs about every 11 years (?). This sunspot cycle has had some of the highest sunspot numbers that have been seen, and recently the sun changed it's polarity (which occurs every sunspot maxima). If sunspots had a great deal to do with weather, this would explain why there is currently alot of panic about the greenhouse effect, and that the last time there was good greenhouse effect proof was around the last sunspot maxima, and being that this sunspot is higher than the last, are we starting to see a pattern?
My interest in sunspots? I am an amateur radio operator, and HF (and sometimes higher frequencies) is best during a sunspot maximums, which means that I am able to more easily talk from Australia to the US and Europe (without internet and/or wires), some people have recently done it on foot with a radio in a backpack, and extreemly low power outputs (5w).
Anyway, I hope that this information is useful to some people, mabs (vk3tst).
2001-03-24 08:03:03 - just a stab in the dark, and my sisters b'day seemed close enough:)
The real story of radio, as I see it.
on
100 Years of Radio
·
· Score: 2
A few points:
* Voice communication was invented by Reginald Aubrey Fessenden.
* Yes, Nickola Tesla invented radio transmission, but not originally for communications, he found that electricity could be transfered through air.
* I am fairly sure that Marconii only really came onto the scene in the 1930's, and when he put in a patent for wireless radio transmissions, he found out that a patent already existed, and by that time, had passed. (correct me if I am wrong - with proof)
* Eddison and Tesla knew each other, Tesla solved one of his Eddison's problems with wide-spread power distribution, Tesla had invented the use of radio signals over wires (50 or 60 cycles (or Hertz) a second), but Tesla wanted too take it further, Eddison didn't want a bar of this, and that is why we use the radio waves for communications, and not for power.
* Tesla also found it hard to sell his ideas, the only way to compare this to what business if like these days is Eddison can be compared too Microsoft, and Tesla could be compared too Amiga, in the context of money, ideas, popularity & know-how (although, if Amiga gets anywhere in the next few years, thia analogy will be wrong, I have crossed fingers:) ).
Well, being from Australia myself I can understand _everything_, and I know the costs.
Me personally, I am 100km north of Melbourne (a very major IT area in oz (IMHO)), and pretty much 100km from anywhere, and suddenly our internet costs go sky high, modem only, on crappy phone lines because the local telco (only one in the country areas) pumps it's dollars into cities, and they have been warned not to do it on multiple occasions by the ACCC, on top of that, there is no local entry point for local ISP's to get to the internet, when we end up with, unlimited internet connections for $50+ (avg speed, < 1.0kbyte/s), or on of the 3 local ISP's you can get mostly full speed out of your modem, but your paying about $1/hour on average(cheapest: $88 for 150 hours, then $66 for 60 hours). In case you are wondering, I am in Seymour.
On Universities, I have seen, and heard on multiple occasions that Australian universities are the best in the world, so we obviously have the smarts before they finnish uni, but as many people have said, the get offered more then twice the ammount of pay (in some cases) overseas, even I am looking at getting a job overseas in a few years time. Also, I was full time uni, but I now have a full time job, and I am at uni only part time, but the facilities at the uni I go too (Latrobe Uni, Bendigo Campus) provides are very good for it's location, and even it's average entrance marks are low, but it does get a lot of asians (you have to see to believe)(oh, and I'm not meaning that it is a bad thing). It also has high speed microwave links to it's central location (4x27mhz), which I believe says something about what they think of the local telco's.
When it comes down to it, Australia needs a better internet/IT/etc... policies, and as far as I am concerned, M$ just want's to get us, maily 'cause we pirate so much (like many people I know, I hate beeing called a consumer, mainly because I don't mindlessly devour, or in this case buy everything), and because, for M$'s point of view, when we see a new, good technology, we will embrace it, I think that's what they're hoping for. (to give you an idea of the level of piracy, Sony is currently fighting with the local law enforcement on who's job it is to tackle playstation game piracy, the fed. police say they have done thier bit, and like _any_ other software company in oz, the companies have to do most of the work themselves. Oh, and I recently watched a pile of DVD's that were supposedly from asia, but being that some aren't even in cinema's, I'd say they are...)
What about the computer game companies that have had to live with piracy?
This is great example of big business getting to the government, but, it's not the first, and it's not the last time.
Anyway, I won't repeat what others have already said, in this forum, and many others, but I do believe that a tax like that, would give you the right to copy music, but then again, have you enough money to fight for it?
I thought "Finally, a decent date scheme", then...
on
13 Month Calendar?
·
· Score: 1
... I read the article, first thought to mind, "HAHAHAHAHA" and, "This guy is crazy!", no leap years, etc.. so then we go out of sync with the seasons, and a day of the year called '00' (zeros are bad, mmm kay), that just topped it off, this is really brightened up my day, and on the scale of working things out easier, this may as well be the same as the current gregorian calender.
I have done a little research into calenders, and the myans had a very similar system, 20 lots of 18 (I am pretty sure), but, after a few years, they noticed crops weren't working sine they were out of sync with the seasons... the myans also had a 260 day religious calender. If you want to look into various myan calenders, checkout mdate: http://mdate.sourceforge.net/
The easiest way to design a calender (I believe) would be to trash the idea of years, use a base of 10, and make years an "artificial" part of it, a day that is celebrated every 365.2??? (not quite.25...)days, worked out by some poor scientest stuck in his lab:) - and around that you would base the seasons, or even overlay the gregorian calender over it, the gregorian calendar has one main use, you know when to go fishing, when to plant your crops, when to expect rain, and when you need the air conditioner fixed by:) Imagine waking up to a 40degC day (it is here today) in month 5, when you are sure last time you saw a 40degC day was in month 2 or 3.
Anyway, my point is that, yes we do need a better calender, but this is the wrong way of doing it IMHO.
The kernel won't work if it can't work out the CPUID, _only_ if it was compiled for something above a 486, since most 486's had no CPUID, they used other methods.
So, it isn't bad kernel design, it's bad distribution design, my guess is that debian will work, and some others should too, as long as the kernel was compiled for a 386, with a math-co emulator.
This also makes creating a hibernation function much, much easier - no more need for a large image file on your harddisk, just let the BIOS know it should *not* erase memory contents after next reboot.
Well, There is actually a function in the BIOS for this, originally intended for 286's to get out of protected mode, because the cpu had too actually be rebooted. I remember playing with it back in my assembly days too see what I could do with it:).
In reguards to radio band, no, there isn't much left, it's a squeze right now, and there isn't really much left for transfering giga-bytes of data. Using convential, non-compressed means, a 10-mbit data channel, you use up, 10megahertz, and it scales 1:1 from there on. With data compression, you can get more, and multiplexing can help, but you can see the start of a problem.
(This is going to be a bit long winded) The next problem is that differrent frequencies have different characteristics, 500-1700khz am radio, can be used to broadcast over long distances in a direct path, and objects don't tend to make too much of a difference, but nearly every piece of electrical equiptment does. Next is 1.7-30mhz, shortwave radio, can cover massive distances, if the ionosphere bounces it back, and is why I can listen to radio netherlands in australia without much more than an antennae sticking out of my radio. Now we get to 30-300Mhz, these frequencies can get some weird effects, the low end, on good days, can make it a few hundred km's, but in most cases, good local communication for up to about 200km, this convers the vhf tv range (0-12 in au). Next is 300-900, similar to 30-300, but shorter range, and effected by buildings more, many services use this range because there is more bandwidth available to them, at the cost of distance and useability, uhf tv exists around here (21-69 in au). Next is 900-3000Mhz, where we encounter 3 cell phone bands (analogue/cdma, gsm & gsm 1.8ghz), and some other traffic, such as some sattelite reciever downlinks (from dish too box), point to point links start around here, MDS services (wireless cable), home networking, microwave ovens (~2.5Ghz), and much more. This is about the only feasable area to open mobile computing channels, but there is the problem of transmissions of on these frequencies causing damage to the human body (if it is proven so). Next is around the 3-30Ghz range, which has some satellite up/downlinks, more point to point links, and not many mobile/portable links, due to the line of sight limitations of this range. After 30Ghz is a few point to point transmissions, and it gets harder and harder to transmit at higher frequencies, since the smallest objects can cause interference (eg. fog/mist, birds, trees), and lower power transmission can have the same effect as higher power at lower frequencies (2.5ghz) to objects like organic material, or metals. Up around these higher frequencies, is where it is easily possible to make some type of emp gun, they are very dirrectional, and can irradiate things well, and only good shielding can work well, but that needs to be completly shielded, not just sealed (plastic does not stop radio waves).
In the future, to fit all the wireless transmissions that people will want to make, we will need too either come up with some really fancy ideas, or invent a new level of communications, or just wait until we get to home or the office to keep in contact. And on the subject of an international frequency band regulator, there is the International Telecommunications Union, these are the people that keep most of the world standard, and sane when it comes to radio frequency allocation.
Oh, and long live experimentation in Amateur (Ham) Radio!:)
Well, as far as I see, with all the comments people have made and how I understand the Australian Copyright Law (I could be wrong..), but, there is a hole in the law that states that you are alowed to reverse engineer anything, for reasons of interoperability...
I am not 100% sure, about how it exactly applies to the documents that have been released, but, maybe an aussie could legally build interoperability into current versions of Kerberos...
I hate to be a troll, but....
on
BeOS For Linux!
·
· Score: 1
I brought this the slashdots attention, with the correct information, the minute it got released, but that article was knocked back, but this one, less informed did make it through.
Slashdot Mirror
I have discussed this with technical people a lot, and the basic conclusion, to solve all problems, is the government should take back static location broadcasting (home, work, etc...), give every one a sattelite dish, and make up the money with sales for the left over spectrum. From here, broadcasters might be given permission to run on one channel accross a large area, like a country, and they can then put in low power re-broadcasting stations on this channel as they see fit. This works with radio too.
There would also need to be a government body controlling broadcasting space on particular satellites.
So, now we have 75% of the problem solved, but what about time zones? and local area broadcasts?
Easy, satellite technology is at the point where they now can choose what you see when you point your dish at the satellite, depending where you are on the surface of the planet. I know that the current Australian Optus satellites split signals to an extreemly fine point, where you can watch one picture on one side of your house, and it changes to the other side of your house, and I belive that there are more than 10 regions like that around Australia.
The only other problem I see if getting the signals up there if you have 10 regions on one satellite, each taking up 35mb/s of bandwidth, that's 350mb/s to get up there, and I believe that laser link technology has solved most of that already.
On the other hand, this problem will go away within the next 50 years, there will be an invention that will open up communications bandwidth, I just don't think it will be using the electro-magnetic spectrum that we currently use.
The one difference is that PC1600 & PC2100 are defined in a standard, which I think is the fastest _bit_ rate transfer speed in meg.
Because a propper SDR would have a dedicated processor, and that is why software defined modems are crap, if they used an internal processor, and DSP, software modems might actually be good!
VK3TST
Well, I am not directly involved with SDR tech yet in ham radio, but I understand the tech, and when I have the time, I will get involved. Anyway, here is the link: http://www.tapr.org/sdr/
So, any hams that want to get involved, there is a start, I know I will be some time in the next 12 months, I'm really hanging out for a HF version, or maybe even a 6m one, maybe I should design one...
VK3TST
Well, technically, it wouldn't have to be as big, only really as heavy (remember density).
... a DMCA circumvention device, just because I remember the book after reading it?
I'm being serious here, what if you reviewed the book and put that up on your website...
Just some food for thought
I have an original iBook SE, and it works -great-, and MacOS 9.1/X dual boot without a problem (using yaboot).
I'd recomend it, and I have to others, and a few have bought, and been happy.
I'm sorry, I had to say something.
When you type those commands, you need internet connectivity, which, in turn, would cost money. In some places the internet would cost you nothing, but in places stuck in the ancient world of modems, and high priced ISP's, we get charged over 19c/Mb (most of the time that is when you go over the download limit, avg. on modem is about 300Mb).
But, I will concede that some ISP's out there give a lot of bandwith for very little, but I still believe that if you wanted to measure the cost of Linux, how much you pay for the cd's is only the start.
What the media has done is just follow the lead of the FBI, and the virus companies. I saw late last night an interview on a current affairs program, where some virus expert was watching internet bandwidth changes during the day, and you know what? internet bandwidth went up a tiny bit at about 1pm AEST, let me think... Lunch time??? - I rolled over laughing.
Anyway, the FBI are making a big thing about this because it makes them look good, think about it:
FBI PR GUY: Isn't something supposed to be happening with this virus at the start of the month?
TECHIE/GEEK: It's only going to start spreading itself, nothing major.
FBI PR GUY: (Running to press room) Oh No! It's going to start spreading itself again, we must warn everybody.....
And you know what's even funnier, the FBI took credit when they said that it was their intervention that stopped a major catastrophy from occuring on the internet. Maybe they're just trying to justify those new jobs they just created (Yes, they are DMCA related, but a most stupid peop^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H americans would think they are the same).
And just before you start ranting at me, just remember what date this virus begins to become active again (00:00 21/*/*).
(PS. I don't mean to imply _all_ americans are stupid, think of the poor central and south americans in Mexico and Brazil, oh, and those in the minor percentages on the northern part.)
They (the mobile phone providers) were told they had to here in Australia :)
Before you dismiss my answer, read this comment through.
Answer: Frame Buffer.
Why is that the answer?
The Linux kernel frame buffer currently will do not only standard graphic mapping, but will also do accelerated function on certain cards, for example, Matrox cards.
At my last check, not all accelerated functions were implimented, and there was a push for a _common_ set of kernel functions so that accelerated features for all video cards would work in a common fassion, which, for example, XFree would use. This is why XFree still works better with a card driver, rather than the fbdev driver.
And, if your not satisfied with XFree still, qt embed uses the linux fb, or, you could learn c and/or c++, and be able to form a better opinion on what needs to be done, and maybe even help out.
I want one for my laptop, trackpads and cables are so limited and annoying, and of course, if you pc _is_ the DVD player...
Well, currently we are going through a solar sunspot maximum, which occurs about every 11 years (?). This sunspot cycle has had some of the highest sunspot numbers that have been seen, and recently the sun changed it's polarity (which occurs every sunspot maxima). If sunspots had a great deal to do with weather, this would explain why there is currently alot of panic about the greenhouse effect, and that the last time there was good greenhouse effect proof was around the last sunspot maxima, and being that this sunspot is higher than the last, are we starting to see a pattern?
My interest in sunspots? I am an amateur radio operator, and HF (and sometimes higher frequencies) is best during a sunspot maximums, which means that I am able to more easily talk from Australia to the US and Europe (without internet and/or wires), some people have recently done it on foot with a radio in a backpack, and extreemly low power outputs (5w).
Anyway, I hope that this information is useful to some people, mabs (vk3tst).
The page talks about the fact that all the updated browsers are html4 compliant, etc...
Did I miss something in the last 12-18 months?
2001-03-24 08:03:03 - just a stab in the dark, and my sisters b'day seemed close enough :)
A few points: :) ).
* Voice communication was invented by Reginald Aubrey Fessenden.
* Yes, Nickola Tesla invented radio transmission, but not originally for communications, he found that electricity could be transfered through air.
* I am fairly sure that Marconii only really came onto the scene in the 1930's, and when he put in a patent for wireless radio transmissions, he found out that a patent already existed, and by that time, had passed. (correct me if I am wrong - with proof)
* Eddison and Tesla knew each other, Tesla solved one of his Eddison's problems with wide-spread power distribution, Tesla had invented the use of radio signals over wires (50 or 60 cycles (or Hertz) a second), but Tesla wanted too take it further, Eddison didn't want a bar of this, and that is why we use the radio waves for communications, and not for power.
* Tesla also found it hard to sell his ideas, the only way to compare this to what business if like these days is Eddison can be compared too Microsoft, and Tesla could be compared too Amiga, in the context of money, ideas, popularity & know-how (although, if Amiga gets anywhere in the next few years, thia analogy will be wrong, I have crossed fingers
Well, being from Australia myself I can understand _everything_, and I know the costs.
Me personally, I am 100km north of Melbourne (a very major IT area in oz (IMHO)), and pretty much 100km from anywhere, and suddenly our internet costs go sky high, modem only, on crappy phone lines because the local telco (only one in the country areas) pumps it's dollars into cities, and they have been warned not to do it on multiple occasions by the ACCC, on top of that, there is no local entry point for local ISP's to get to the internet, when we end up with, unlimited internet connections for $50+ (avg speed, < 1.0kbyte/s), or on of the 3 local ISP's you can get mostly full speed out of your modem, but your paying about $1/hour on average(cheapest: $88 for 150 hours, then $66 for 60 hours). In case you are wondering, I am in Seymour.
On Universities, I have seen, and heard on multiple occasions that Australian universities are the best in the world, so we obviously have the smarts before they finnish uni, but as many people have said, the get offered more then twice the ammount of pay (in some cases) overseas, even I am looking at getting a job overseas in a few years time. Also, I was full time uni, but I now have a full time job, and I am at uni only part time, but the facilities at the uni I go too (Latrobe Uni, Bendigo Campus) provides are very good for it's location, and even it's average entrance marks are low, but it does get a lot of asians (you have to see to believe)(oh, and I'm not meaning that it is a bad thing). It also has high speed microwave links to it's central location (4x27mhz), which I believe says something about what they think of the local telco's.
When it comes down to it, Australia needs a better internet/IT/etc... policies, and as far as I am concerned, M$ just want's to get us, maily 'cause we pirate so much (like many people I know, I hate beeing called a consumer, mainly because I don't mindlessly devour, or in this case buy everything), and because, for M$'s point of view, when we see a new, good technology, we will embrace it, I think that's what they're hoping for. (to give you an idea of the level of piracy, Sony is currently fighting with the local law enforcement on who's job it is to tackle playstation game piracy, the fed. police say they have done thier bit, and like _any_ other software company in oz, the companies have to do most of the work themselves. Oh, and I recently watched a pile of DVD's that were supposedly from asia, but being that some aren't even in cinema's, I'd say they are...)
What about the computer game companies that have had to live with piracy?
This is great example of big business getting to the government, but, it's not the first, and it's not the last time.
Anyway, I won't repeat what others have already said, in this forum, and many others, but I do believe that a tax like that, would give you the right to copy music, but then again, have you enough money to fight for it?
... I read the article, first thought to mind, "HAHAHAHAHA" and, "This guy is crazy!", no leap years, etc.. so then we go out of sync with the seasons, and a day of the year called '00' (zeros are bad, mmm kay), that just topped it off, this is really brightened up my day, and on the scale of working things out easier, this may as well be the same as the current gregorian calender.
.25...)days, worked out by some poor scientest stuck in his lab :) - and around that you would base the seasons, or even overlay the gregorian calender over it, the gregorian calendar has one main use, you know when to go fishing, when to plant your crops, when to expect rain, and when you need the air conditioner fixed by :) Imagine waking up to a 40degC day (it is here today) in month 5, when you are sure last time you saw a 40degC day was in month 2 or 3.
I have done a little research into calenders, and the myans had a very similar system, 20 lots of 18 (I am pretty sure), but, after a few years, they noticed crops weren't working sine they were out of sync with the seasons... the myans also had a 260 day religious calender. If you want to look into various myan calenders, checkout mdate: http://mdate.sourceforge.net/
The easiest way to design a calender (I believe) would be to trash the idea of years, use a base of 10, and make years an "artificial" part of it, a day that is celebrated every 365.2??? (not quite
Anyway, my point is that, yes we do need a better calender, but this is the wrong way of doing it IMHO.
The kernel won't work if it can't work out the CPUID, _only_ if it was compiled for something above a 486, since most 486's had no CPUID, they used other methods.
So, it isn't bad kernel design, it's bad distribution design, my guess is that debian will work, and some others should too, as long as the kernel was compiled for a 386, with a math-co emulator.
Just register your UIN on AIM :)
This also makes creating a hibernation function much, much easier - no more need for a large image file on your harddisk, just let the BIOS know it should *not* erase memory contents after next reboot.
:).
Well, There is actually a function in the BIOS for this, originally intended for 286's to get out of protected mode, because the cpu had too actually be rebooted. I remember playing with it back in my assembly days too see what I could do with it
In reguards to radio band, no, there isn't much left, it's a squeze right now, and there isn't really much left for transfering giga-bytes of data. Using convential, non-compressed means, a 10-mbit data channel, you use up, 10megahertz, and it scales 1:1 from there on. With data compression, you can get more, and multiplexing can help, but you can see the start of a problem.
:)
(This is going to be a bit long winded)
The next problem is that differrent frequencies have different characteristics, 500-1700khz am radio, can be used to broadcast over long distances in a direct path, and objects don't tend to make too much of a difference, but nearly every piece of electrical equiptment does.
Next is 1.7-30mhz, shortwave radio, can cover massive distances, if the ionosphere bounces it back, and is why I can listen to radio netherlands in australia without much more than an antennae sticking out of my radio.
Now we get to 30-300Mhz, these frequencies can get some weird effects, the low end, on good days, can make it a few hundred km's, but in most cases, good local communication for up to about 200km, this convers the vhf tv range (0-12 in au).
Next is 300-900, similar to 30-300, but shorter range, and effected by buildings more, many services use this range because there is more bandwidth available to them, at the cost of distance and useability, uhf tv exists around here (21-69 in au).
Next is 900-3000Mhz, where we encounter 3 cell phone bands (analogue/cdma, gsm & gsm 1.8ghz), and some other traffic, such as some sattelite reciever downlinks (from dish too box), point to point links start around here, MDS services (wireless cable), home networking, microwave ovens (~2.5Ghz), and much more. This is about the only feasable area to open mobile computing channels, but there is the problem of transmissions of on these frequencies causing damage to the human body (if it is proven so).
Next is around the 3-30Ghz range, which has some satellite up/downlinks, more point to point links, and not many mobile/portable links, due to the line of sight limitations of this range.
After 30Ghz is a few point to point transmissions, and it gets harder and harder to transmit at higher frequencies, since the smallest objects can cause interference (eg. fog/mist, birds, trees), and lower power transmission can have the same effect as higher power at lower frequencies (2.5ghz) to objects like organic material, or metals. Up around these higher frequencies, is where it is easily possible to make some type of emp gun, they are very dirrectional, and can irradiate things well, and only good shielding can work well, but that needs to be completly shielded, not just sealed (plastic does not stop radio waves).
In the future, to fit all the wireless transmissions that people will want to make, we will need too either come up with some really fancy ideas, or invent a new level of communications, or just wait until we get to home or the office to keep in contact.
And on the subject of an international frequency band regulator, there is the International Telecommunications Union, these are the people that keep most of the world standard, and sane when it comes to radio frequency allocation.
Oh, and long live experimentation in Amateur (Ham) Radio!
Well, as far as I see, with all the comments people have made and how I understand the Australian Copyright Law (I could be wrong..), but, there is a hole in the law that states that you are alowed to reverse engineer anything, for reasons of interoperability...
I am not 100% sure, about how it exactly applies to the documents that have been released, but, maybe an aussie could legally build interoperability into current versions of Kerberos...
I brought this the slashdots attention, with the correct information, the minute it got released, but that article was knocked back, but this one, less informed did make it through.