Re: [PLUG] Free Wireless Access

[Chris "Magnus" Hedemark <chrish@trilug.org>]

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On Monday, June 9, 2003, at 03:51 PM, Jeff 'Jephree' Mealo wrote:

> How is it possible
> to maintan a connection to let's say... IRC, or AIM w/o disconnects 
> when the
> requests would immediately be broken and IPs would be constantly 
> switching?

You don't switch IP's.  And you don't NAT.  You would need a block of 
publicly routable IP's, and multihome your network.

There are additional technologies needed to permit roaming.  Some are 
on IPv4 and exhibit varying degrees of kluginess.  Some are on IPv6 and 
show more promise.

> Keep in mind I'm thinking outside of the cities... Also, what speed
> connections are possible over HAM radio? What are viable solutions as 
> far as
> range and cost efficiency go?

Ham radio is slow, at least last time I checked.  You need to sit on a 
large spread of spectrum to achieve high speeds.  Commonly available 
802.11b can go quite far on a directional antenna.  802.11a will cut 
through trees better but has a shorter range (being up at 5GHz).  There 
is more hope for the 802.16 family to provide the sort of topology that 
I think you might be wishing for.

The idea of free internet though is probably a myth today.  Yeah sure a 
few will get it but the ISP's don't want you to do this, nor do the 
major telco's.  More likely, I could see a series of wireless internet 
cooperatives that piggyback on wireless broadband meshes.  Like you & 
24 other guys chip in to run a T1 into a closet somewhere, and split 
the cost (plus a small stipend going to the host of the T1 for power, 
hosting the nameservers and such, etc).

IMHO the best way to make a more favorable environment is to create a 
community mesh network that runs separate from the Internet, and make 
it so sweet that ISP's want to peer with YOU.  ;-)

- --

Chris "Magnus" Hedemark
UNIX / Linux / BSD / Mac OS X / Windows consulting available.  No job 
too small!
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