Is A Public Wireless Internet Possible?

edmz asks: "As of this day anyone with resources can deploy their Web site and be accessible worldwide. Thanks to telcos wanting to charge for use of their infrastructure this might change soon, who knows. But the point is that its possible in this very moment. Now, let's be imaginative and think that in 10 years we will be able to have a truly wireless Internet. What things are being done now as to guarantee that we will have a public and big enough part of the spectrum so that we can broadcast, share and communicate as we do with the net now? Will all of the spectrum be private, and thus, possibly pay per use?" A wireless Internet, when created, will be one of the first major advances of the 21st century. How long will it take before it becomes a reality?

Seen Consume?

It's underway in London already - by being a non-profit, loose organisation of volunteers just donating spare bandwidth and putting kit together to blanket as much of the public area as possible with 802.11.

It's interesting, to say the least.

See the consume.net site [consume.net] for more info. If it works, this might be a good model for replicating across other cities.

-- Yoz

Intercontinental links

You might manage a pretty impressive internetwork, but it's pretty hard to do intercontinental links without the resources of governmnents and telcos, the only people with the expertise and cash to lay cables or launch satellites.

I suppose the recent launch of the amateur ham radio satellite gives some hope, but personally I've gotten used to ~300 ms Oz-US ping times and I'm not really keen to give them up :)

Re:Wireless Broadband

Wireless is also an easy way to bypass monopolys who currently control the land lines..
Phone companys controll phone lines, DSL, ISDN, and OCR-*
Cable companys control well.. cable..

While deregulation is being used to open up thies markets in the United States the rest of the world has issues of thies monopolys using position to CLOSE UP the ISP market...

The UK could use a wireless ISP to bypass BT for example...

My theory

My theory is that eventually very large chunks of bandwidth will have their users evicted. That bandwidth will be used to cover every populated bit of the US with high-bandwidth digital data. And of course, cellular voice will be subsumed by this network as voice-over-IP.

Just give it time....
-russ

More towers

Just what we need, more large towers belting out radiation.

Best option for wireless

Do you want cheap, city-wide, wireless internet? There is a company that can do it very cost effectively. They are currently targeting 3rd world countries who are in desperate need for wireless communications. Currently the FCC has not allowed such a platform. (blame AT&T)

Using blimps to be able to cover a very large diamater (300 - 600 km) of high bandwidth wireless internet!

Check out their site:
www.platforms-intl.com

Cd

I hope this doesn't spawn lots of anti-FCC posts

The problem with keeping wireless free to the masses is limited spectrum space. Thankfully the gov't in the US realized how problematic this could be many years ago and created the FCC to regulate the airwaves.

The net as it is now is virtually unlimited in growth potential, and we can lay as much fiber as we want without interfering with each other's communications. This is not the case with wireless, as evidenced by all the problems radio piracy causes.

Imagine if the wireless data spectrum were being polluted in much the same way that AM & FM bands are these days. Dropped connections, interference, and eavesdropping would be so rampant that nothing useful would ever come of your wireless gadgets. Instead of reading your email you might unexpectedly have a kiddie porn image pop up on your PDA. Instead of that report going to your boss it might end up in the hands of some 15 year old wireless hacker who will send it to your competition.

So if any of you are thinking about advocating opening up the airwaves to the public, I advise you to seriously consider the consequences first. Maybe having most of the spectrum allocated to large, pre-existing corporations isn't the best in the interest of freedom, but the anarchy of having a handful of geeky HAM dweebs trashing our data communications is simply something to be avoided at all costs!

Re:I hope this doesn't spawn lots of anti-FCC post

IANAHAM,yet, but yes, HAMs are permitted to send data over the air. It's called "packet radio", and can be used in certian parts of almost every HAM band (50Mhz bands and up I think). There are even satelites for HAMs that allow reflection and even relay of both packet and voice messages. Check out ARRL [arrl.org] if you want to know more. The ARRL is the official organization for the amateur community.

As I said, I Am Not A HAM, so I am not sure I am right on all of the details, but the ARRL [arrl.org] site should tell you everything you want to know. Might be a good read for everyone interested in wireless internet.

Also, this [arrl.org] whitepaper outlines some of the ARRL's plans to allocate data channels within their own bands. Perhaps there are some good ideas in there on how to deploy a wireless internet over a larger scale?

Poor view of wireless communication

Saying that having some ham put kiddie porn on your PDA is like saying that some internet guy can put a picture of a dancing elvis on your computer monitor without permission. Sure, he can throw those bits at your computer, but (hopefully) your computer doesn't listen to everything sent to it.

This is much like your TV, which has many channels sent to it, but only shows you one at a time.

Have you ever used Ham radio? Do you know Ham operators? Those ``geeky HAM dweebs'' are much better-behaved than your typical AOL user. When someone starts acting inappropriately, it's the Hams who find her first and report her to the FCC.

Do you quite understand what you're saying? By your same logic, the US government should control all the networks because otherwise geeky computer users might be able to trash our data. Sheesh. Just because something is wireless doesn't make it inherently less secure. Wireless communication is just another way to transmit information... instead of transmitting over a wire or a fiber line, you're transmitting through the air. People can snoop your data, yes. But this isn't much different than wires today... especially consider Ethernet, where everyone gets everyone's traffic by design!

Having public communications channels isn't the end of the world. It is nice to have the FCC to have set frequency ranges set aside for different purposes. But I think you don't understand wireless communication or HAM radio operators at all.

Related story on InfoAnarchy.org

InfoAnarchy.org recently posted a related article about guerilla.net [infoanarchy.org]. Go check it out.

Must have a network to connect to

Even if you could communicate over some kind of wireless LAN that spanned over your city, what userful network would you be connected to ? The internet, you say ? There aren't enough addresses to share so that you would end up with one. If you connect to a public wireless LAN, the best you'll have is an address behind a NAT. An unreachable address. That's not so good.

There is a need for a network to connect to, that wouldn't have those address limitations. Something based on IPV6 would fit the bill. From that IPV6 network, you could open tunnels that'd lead to the IPV4 internet. Perhaps even request a real, tunnelled IPV4 address from an IPV4 provider somewhere.

There is the 6bone ( www.6bone.net ) that has been starting to create an IPV6 network. But it's not progressing. There is no content or services on the IPV6 network, so nobody will go there. A chicken-and-egg problem. If the 6bone or some other IPV6 network grew, it would solve one of the major impediments to a wireless internet.

That and micropayments. Micropayments remain something that would enable a lot of services to be offered. There are a couple of interesting systems.. www.e-gold.com is one. It allows one to purchase gold, kept in trust by the e-gold corporation. You can give any amount, no matter how small, with only a 1% transfer fee (0.50$ max). The problem is that getting money into an e-gold account is going to cost you at least 4%, probably more. And there is a 1% per year maintenance fee. So the system still is pretty costly.

www.standardreserve.com does things a bit differently. Perhaps in a more useful way. And then there is www.mojonation.net which promises to also create another virtual currency, but which is aimed at file sharing. However, the possibilities of such a virtual currency do not end there.

If you had an easy-to-buy, easy-to-trade virtual currency, that allowed micropayments among other things, and that had some popularity, that would enable many things. A wireless network ran by people in their homes would be one of them. Reflectors, tunnels, lease of addresses, and other network services further enabling a new network, they could all prove interesting to run, as you'd charge for their use. A minor fee, yes, but still a fee. Mojonation aims to do that. Combine the goal of mojonation with working software (instead of pre-pre-alpha quality mojonation software) and valuable e-currency such as e-gold (100% backed by metal).. And you'd have something truly interesting.

I imagine a parallel network developping along the internet. Any geek in his home, with a 30$ transmitter, could setup an access point. He would charge small sums for each KB transfered and sent through a tunnel, via the internet, onto that new network.

Dreams...

Re:Poor view of wireless communication

I have to strongly disagree with you that wireless communication is just as secure as copper or fiber. Somebody on a land line can easily be physically disconnected from the network. You absolutely can not prohibit someone with a scanner from eavsedropping on wireless communications. If we open this up to just about anybody with a transmitter there will be serious problems. At least with large ISP's controlling the flow there is always somebody with a fair amount of knowledge who can offer some protection to those who just need the communications but don't have the knowledge of security to protect themselves.

The only reason HAM is fairly orderly now is because of the steep learning curve to use. It locks out those who might cause problems, either intentionally or accidentally. If wireless is available to the masses without decent liscensing requirements then that barrier to entry is removed and all hell will break loose. This is what happened with the net & AOL, if you remember.

Some means of communications, like wireless, are simply too dangerous to be opened up to the public at large.