Independent of the regulatory challenges, even small scale community WiFi networks very hard to pull off. Shaddi (of TIER fame) wrote about this a few years back. He concludes, "I'm not saying mesh networks don't work ever...What I am saying is that unplanned wireless mesh networks never work at scale."
Related: http://serverfault.com/questions/72767/why-is-internet-access-and-wi-fi-always-so-terrible-at-large-tech-conferences On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 12:01 AM, ashish makani <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Folks > > Came across this interesting story > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/tech-telecom-giants-take-sides-as-fcc-proposes-large-public-wifi-networks/2013/02/03/eb27d3e0-698b-11e2-ada3-d86a4806d5ee_story.html > > Excerpt: > "The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the > nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make > calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month. > > The proposal from the Federal Communications Commission has rattled the $178 > billion wireless industry, which has launched a fierce lobbying effort to > persuade policymakers to reconsider the idea, analysts say. That has been > countered by an equally intense campaign from Google,Microsoft and other > tech giants who say a free-for-all WiFi service would spark an explosion of > innovations and devices that would benefit most Americans, especially the > poor." > > This proposal is in the US, but would be interesting to see, if developing > countries with big user bases, could also use large scale public wi-fi n/ws > instead of/in addition to, mobile telephony n/ws. > > Also, what about the relative costs of building a large scale public wifi > n/w as opposed to a mobile telephony n/w, in a world where increasingly data > dominates voice. > > cheers > ashish > > _______________________________________________ > change mailing list > [email protected] > http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change > _______________________________________________ change mailing list [email protected] http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
