[wordup] The future of neighborhood area networks.

[Adam Shand]

This is a little geeky, and it directly effects me because I founded
Personal Telco, a group trying to do exactly this.  Anyway, here it is,
read it and see what you think:

There's also a great discussion with lots of fanciful stuff going on at
slashdot about similar stuff:

    http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/01/10/18/1716222.shtml

For those not up on wireless gear, 802.11b is a cheap (US$60-$120), fast
(10Mbs) wireless protocol which will cover distances of up to several
miles (more typically a couple hundred feet).  802.11a is a newer version
which will is faster (54Mbs) but will cover a shorter distance.  It's very
cool stuff.

Adam.

Via: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decentralization/message/4247
From: Todd Boyle <tboyle at r...>

What will society do, when there are kits in every computer store and
mall, for 802.11a neighborhood routers?  What if you could buy a kit with
four pole-mounting 15DB directional antennas, and a router in a sealed
case that maintains mesh networks?  What if it displays an HTML interface
to the SysAdmin (you!) all the nodes being serviced, so that you can
cutoff the ones you want, etc.?  This lets you charge $1 for internet
access real easy, or dial back their thruput if they're saturating your
hub.

What if these boxes are so dumb, there is no way of hacking the content
(finally!  a neighborhood solution that doesn't have any possibility of
snooping your private email, financial payments, porn habits, etc.  These
are the cultural reason why local ISPs have *never* succeeded in getting
close up and personal. )

So the most important question is, WHAT changes in society will happen
from these totally decentrallized devices??  A few predictions:

1. Most immediately there will be a great blooming of local gaming, IM,
   and voice/video telephony among the local teens. Parents will actually
   appreciate regaining the use of the telephone...

2. Also, immediately there will be a lot of sharing of music and video on
   these NANs (neighborhood area networks)

3. Software will emerge that allows you to share a 2nd phone line, and
   other disruptive things, entirely decentrallize communications in ways
   the regulators, Cable Co or Telco has little chance of blocking.

4. We will all realize pretty quickly this is NOT the Internet and it will
   start to attract serious academic and theoretical analysis.  A lot of
   diverse and wholly incompatible stuff will break out in various cities.
   Eventually some really cool new networking architecture might emerge
   that is yes, TCP/IP but different.  The distances and performance will
   get better and better.

5. A whole lot of people will try hundreds of new ideas for payments,
   local currencies, local market hubs, and other business functions...
   some tied back to the traditional internet, some not.

6. A common platform for Web of Trust will emerge.  It will be anchored in
   real relationships since the NANs will be so local.  Accordingly the
   NANs will become, strangely enough, the native environment for
   conducting ordinary purchases, sales and settlements in a way that the
   globally visible, anonymous and hacked Internet never achieved.

7. The global Internet will come to the NANs for various confirmations of
   location, authentication and reputation.  A reputation on the Internet
   will be unthinkable if you don't have a reputation someplace in the NAN
   environment, Like, who the heck are YOU, if nobody knows you on the
   NANs?

Todd Boyle CPA
www.gldialtone.com / www.arapXML.net