I hate to sound like a broken record, and I'm sure I'm not making myself
very popular. On the other hand I hate to see this opportunity (the second
and probably last that will exist in my lifetime) lost. It isn't a very big
opportunity to begin with (both in time and magnitude of change), but an
opportunity it is none the less.
"Elliot Onn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
|"Let me explain my viewpoint, if I may. You and many other individuals
|and small businesses have Access Points that have connection to the
|Internet. Because many (people) do not use bandwidth to its capacity,
|default connections could be listed in an automated system where your
|laptop would automatically switch from one WLAN to another seamlessly.
|It might be feasible to have a massive wireless network where an AP from
|one house bridges to an AP at another."
|
|Sort of like that. A big wireless underground network, if you will. Good
|idea. I wish someone would write a plan for it.
Perception is very important. If you present yourself as an underground
network out to leech free internet access for yourself you will be perceived
as a threat. The self-identified legitimate players will regulate you out of
the game. The magnitude of the response will be in proportion to the degree of
your technical success. If you doubt that this kind of response is possible,
take a look at the legal lengths the cell phone service providers went to in
order to insure that you pay them per-instrument.
If on the other hand you present yourself as an upstanding non-profit corporate
venture out to explore a new market providing service to others you get to
_make_ the rules, or at least have a say in their making. The existing players
might even see you as a friend because they will assume you are doing a typical
dotcom and intend to jack up prices on your "customers" once they are hooked.
(Obviously you fool them by not doing the latter. :) Keep in mind that the
market is already filling up with commercial WISPs who will eventually set
the standards for what you can and cannot do privately.
|We would all need Access
|Points that have bridging capabilities.
The bridging available in off-the-shelf access point combos is probably not
sufficient (and is almost certainly not necessary) for building that kind of
network. There has been some work in 802.11 ad-hoc configurations using a
thin dynamic routing layer between the IP stack and the medium. It was
intended for networks little more than twice the radius of the radio's normal
range, but the folks working on these things might have some valuable insights
into how well ad-hoc mode works in such usage. I don't remember the project
name off hand, but it pops up with a Google search of "802.11 ad-hoc".
Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
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