I agree with the folks suggesting T1 + wireless for neighbors. A very successful service here in Santa Fe is La Canada wireless, which as earlier folks mention, share a T1 with very simple 802.11 wireless, building a very effective network for those unable to get a cable modem or DSL. Indeed, they would not now change, even if cable/DSL did become available.
http://www.lcwireless.com/
Besides being a great read, Barabási filled in a tremendiously important gap in computing graph theory which started with Milgram's Small Worlds work, continued with Watts & Strogatz book on Small Worlds and 6 degrees of separation, and ended up with Huberman and Watts & Newman's great work in power law search and dynamics. Check out (blatant self serving) http://backspaces.net/PLaw/ which discusses what these guys went thru. Barabási and his folks figured out, among other things, how small worlds can be power law worlds. They are definitely changing our world.
Consider Apple OSX: Apple does Unix *on hardware they support*. Consider Linux: No one, not even IBM, supports Linux on their hardware.
The success of Linux has nothing at all to do with the excellence of the technology. It has everything to do with support.
Think of all the fussing you do to get Linux running on your systems: sound drivers don't work.. fuss fuss; display doesn't mirror properly..fuss fuss; nic doesn't work right..fuss fuss; DVD doesn't work right..fuss..fuss. It really never ends.
So getting a manufacturer to impedence match the hardware to the distro is the real battle here.
Confession: I just moved on to Mac OSX. Its Unix enough and the fuss factor is 1/10 of my Thinkpad. And I'd go back in a minute if IBM offered even 1/2 the support Apple does.
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I agree with the folks suggesting T1 + wireless for neighbors. A very successful service here in Santa Fe is La Canada wireless, which as earlier folks mention, share a T1 with very simple 802.11 wireless, building a very effective network for those unable to get a cable modem or DSL. Indeed, they would not now change, even if cable/DSL did become available.
http://www.lcwireless.com/
Besides being a great read, Barabási filled in a tremendiously important gap in computing graph theory which started with Milgram's Small Worlds work, continued with Watts & Strogatz book on Small Worlds and 6 degrees of separation, and ended up with Huberman and Watts & Newman's great work in power law search and dynamics. Check out (blatant self serving) http://backspaces.net/PLaw/ which discusses what these guys went thru. Barabási and his folks figured out, among other things, how small worlds can be power law worlds. They are definitely changing our world.
Consider Apple OSX: Apple does Unix *on hardware they support*. Consider Linux: No one, not even IBM, supports Linux on their hardware.
.. fuss fuss; display doesn't mirror properly ..fuss fuss; nic doesn't work right ..fuss fuss; DVD doesn't work right ..fuss ..fuss. It really never ends.
The success of Linux has nothing at all to do with the excellence of the technology. It has everything to do with support.
Think of all the fussing you do to get Linux running on your systems: sound drivers don't work
So getting a manufacturer to impedence match the hardware to the distro is the real battle here.
Confession: I just moved on to Mac OSX. Its Unix enough and the fuss factor is 1/10 of my Thinkpad. And I'd go back in a minute if IBM offered even 1/2 the support Apple does.