We met them last spring. I heard about them first at a net neutrality event featuring Ron Wyden and some state and local officials at a Multnomah County Library branch. I'd never heard of them, looked them up and invited them to a Personal Telco Project meeting, where we had a nice exchange of ideas. Maybe we could get them to come give a PLUG talk.
In a lot of ways, rural environments have it easier when it comes to wireless infrastructure: less RF interference, easier access to high points, the pressure of fewer alternatives. I admire their gumption. A month ago, I drove a fellow named Christopher Mitchell over to John Day, Oregon to present to a local committee working to get a fiber run from Burns, about 70 miles away to improve their internets. Many people in Grant County are on satellite internet, which is very limiting. I had 9-10 hours with him in the car. People think rural internet infrastructure is just impossible economically, but people forget that the same was said about electricity, but we managed to get a wire to pretty much every building in the country with Rural Electrification over the space of a few decades. On the way over and back, we passed a long-haul fiber being trenched in along the highway. Turns out, a local public electric utility, Columbia Basin Electrical Coop, is installing fiber to the home in Fossil, Oregon (and I think Condon too). When you start thinking outside the conventional economic box, many things are possible. On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 9:52 PM Mike C. <mconno...@gmail.com> wrote: > Mesh networks and municipal broadband probably aren't new to anyone on > PLUG. However, Althea's incentivized, encrypted, crypto-payment mesh > network is brand new to me. > > Here's a link to article if it's also new to me, > https://medium.com/althea-mesh/althea-in-rural-oregon-a16e4e8cc2a7 > > I can think of at least 1 person, you know who you are, who is > probably pretty well in the know about this project. But I also recall > some folks on PLUG that are in more rural areas who also might have > some intimate knowledge of this project who'd be willing to share some > insights & opinions with the rest of the us. > > Cheers!, > > Mike > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > PLUG@pdxlinux.org > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
