[CS-FSLUG] End of the Net (again)?

[Marco Tedaldi]

Hello everyone...

Josiah Ritchie wrote

> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 2:14 AM, Nathan T. <celerate at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Does anyone else think that something might just come along to replace
> > the internet. 

No, I don't think so... but this depends on what you define as "the Internet".
the Internet is a network which is connecting a bunch of Networks all over the world together with the help of IP (the Internet Protocol).

> >After all, technically the earliest internet access was
> > done by dialling a phone number into a modem and communicating with a
> > computer at the other end.

That's how end users did it. But before this, some organisations where linked together over leased lines. So Internet has nothing to do with the technology which is used to connect ot the Network. It's one of the cool things of this protocol-stacks, that it's almost independent of the bit-layer.
Even pigeon-transport works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

> > I know that the major phone and cable
> > companies right now also are or control the ISPs, but there are other
> > methods such as linking together wireless routers into a unified network
> > and then somehow linking those across cities. 

This is done... for exapample in europe with
freifunk.net (Germany/international)
funkfeuer.at (Austria)
openwireless.ch (Switzerland)

> >Of course whatever comes
> > around to replace the internet if it's a volunteer lead project will be
> > slow and unreliable, but I'd be more than interested in the potential
> > outcome of such a project.
> 
It's working... There is also packet-radio and differnet other approaches which free the internet from commercial transports.

> Yeah, I definitely see it as a possibility. Ed was referring to this
> when he spoke of the BBS network. Previous implementations of this
> sort of thing were limited to very, very, very few people who were
> knowledgeable about the tech required. Seems like those willing to
> figure out how to do it are becoming increasingly numerous. People
> have the taste in their mouth for the power of information now. Just
> the same, it would be a significantly difficult thing to maintain and
> organize.
> 
with the availlability of cheap wireless hardware, the Great OpenWRT distribution and specialised distributions which already implement everythin to build up an OLSR or B.A.T.M.A.N.-Based Mesh network, It's becoming easier to build u or join a comunity network.

I think one of the bigger is http://sg.openwireless.ch/ with about 250-300 Routers alway online stretching ofer the city of St. Gallen (Switzerland). Here's a map: http://sg.openwireless.ch/karte )

Marco
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