The End Of The Internet
 

Not sure if this has been discussed here, but I stumbled across this today:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester :confused:

What the hell. It just keeps getting better.

this has been discussed many times by the people who own the fiber that goes around the world. How to make more money, charge for everything, including bandwidth on emails.

well, i don't see this happening anytime soon, and if it does, I think broadband over power lines will kick in majorly. Everyone who has electricity to their home will be able to have broadband.

Lots of (expensive) changes to infrastructure, and legal loopholes to jump though (invasion of privacy?) before this comes to fruition. So, don't expect it any time soon.

As for broadband via power cable.. I welcome it. As I live in a place with no broadband availability!!!!!!!! :mad:

You can just bury a bunch of repeaters and a cat6 cable from work to your home...:D

I agree though, I welcome ethernet over powerlines

Interesting topic. BPL is not the answer to your prayers. I've had the chance to visit some test sites and let emphasize the fact that you are running data over a grid that acts like an antenna. AC power isnt affected because it runs at 60Hz which is a LONG wavelength. However, for Data communication, you have to use GHz to get a usable bandwidth. The amount of RF that bombards such a grid is astounding. I saw test results that yielded some horrible data. Mostly, with respect to signal degradation and corruption. I've been to several conferences as well where academics simply rip BPL apart because of its functionality and poor performance measures. If I were you guys, I would be counting on something like WiMAX or Mobile WiMAX for your broadband needs. (Fiber would be best though)

Also, I'm not seeing the Internet going anywhere because no one owns it. the original DARPANET is still the foundation of the Internet here in the US, though the medium itself has been replaced, the legacy remains. To own the internet would be like owning an ocean or something like that. It could be done, but whats the actual probability? Awesome topic.

coorect no one owns it, but companies do own the fiber that it runs on.

Unfortunately, I live out in the country, so there is little to no chance of a WiMAX signal making it to me (too far from a major metro area where they are considering it). I have a better chance of continuing to write a letter a day to Sprint asking them when they will build a network "closet" out in the boonies and offer DSL. Of course, I could always get a second mortgage and pay for DIrectWay (or HugesNet or whatever it's called now), but I want broadband for (primarily) World of Warcraft (pathetic, no?) and the latency of satellite based broadband is horrible. I can't have that. So it back to the letter writing for me!!

Dear Sprint...

I have engineered a number of wireless systems in small areas with few customers. The cost scale of wireless makes it very feasible. I did one site that delivers service to a potential of only 50 homes on some small islands. It's very cost-feasible. Thing is, only a small company would be interested in those things, so someone local has to run it.

Right now I'm working with a company bringing wireless to rural areas of AZ, those with only a few thousand residents.

Yeah there is a smaller town south and west of KC that has wifi broadcast through out the whole town for its few thousand residents. You then subscribe to the wifi connection.

I drove down there once to check it out you know, and sure it is a feasible option. I was pulling like 300k/second downloads which is pretty impressive actually for wifi. Of course that was peak bandwidth, I didn't always get 300k/s down stream, just some of the time.

I'd be lucky if there were a few thousand residents in 25 square miles.

well you have a cell phone tower right?

Talk with your providers about setting up some wifi and then set up some APs around some populated areas.

I am sure if you built it people would pay 40$ per month for access. See if you can't stir up with someone small and local, who knows maybe even be a partner with them or offer to help out. You obviously have the skills to set up a wifi network.

No. No cell service. Except for Verizon.. and that's just a single bar, and it comes and goes.

Seriously, where I live, it's dial-up and ISDN. I'd rather eat my shoe. /sulk

wow you live next door to the unibomber or something?

That's still economically feasible from a P/L perspective, but it's just not attractive to big companies because there isn't enough revenue. A local company (you) could make a go of it.

As a separate question/idea, how many neighbors do you have within 1 mile and line of sight?

The excitement that is fueling the WiMAX build-out is that its very feasible for a small start-up company to simply buy a few Basestations, and some CPEs and therefore get TRUE broadband connections to rural areas. Many companies are obviously going to implement WiMAX in Urban areas where wired access is become a problem. However, WiMAXs range and throughput will be able to bring broadband to rural areas. Even if you are 100 miles from any sizable city, there is still a good possibility that a WiMAX BS could use relays to provide a backbone to the local network for a small area.

Personally, I think WiMAX will only be good for stationary, Line of Sight connections, however; the mobile WiMAX draft will definitely change the landscape of mobile computing . My dream is that come year 2020, we'll all have a fiber connection to your house with speeds in excess of 100Mbps. Now wouldn't that be nice?? hehehe. Dream on I suppose.

Oh the pr0n.. the pr0n! <eyes glaze over> :)

Perhaps I've been over-exagerating where I live a bit. It's definitely out in the country, but I have plenty of neighbors. It's a small development on some former farmland that is still surrounded by farmland and is still out in the boonies. There's maybe 20-30 houses on 100 acres? With more going in, which is a good thing for resale, property values, and DSL chances.

As a gague of distance to "civilization", it's a 25 minute drive (on a highway going 60MPH+) to the nearest McDonald's. :)

It's funny.. I'm out where streets have funny names that depends on which direction you're going and which town/village/community you're heading towards.

Still, bitches aside, it sure beats living in town where the taxes are exhoribinant, and your neighbor's house is less then 10 feet away.

Given your circumstances Yellow, I would think that DSL will be your best hope. Especially since most teleco's are taking FOREVER to rollout WiMAX. Satellite data service is horrible. They can really only give you 1Mbps down, and thats with TCP stripped down or not used at all to get past the delay. Oh well, thankfully; I live close to downtown Denver so i'm in no threat of losing my broadband capabilities, however; I still want my fiber!

Yellow, that sounds like exactly the sort of place where I've done these micro-systems. The fact is you CAN get good bandwidth there (99% certainty) but it just costs too much ($500/mo). But what if 10 of your neighbors shared it? What if 30 shared it?

Broadband feasible for sparsely populated areas
 

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A couple of years ago, I wrote a Case Study for Nera Networks on their project to provide a broadband infrastructure to the vast majority of residents and business on the Fosen Peninsula, north of Trondheim. Most parts of the peninsula served sound as sparsely populated as your home turf, Yellow -- if not more so.

This was done with a series of wi-fi transmitter/receivers (microwave), bringing the signal into the various and sundry telephone centres (is that what you call them?). From there, it was ADSL or fibre to the end customer. Worked like a dream. It was financed and implemented cooperatively by the municipalities in the region, since none of the large companies were interested due to the small scale. Since then, ironically, it has been bought out by one of Norway’s major broadband providers.

Thanks among other things to projects such as these, Norway has a broadband infrastructure fulfilling the needs of approx. 80% of the population. Meaning people and those areas can just pick up the phone and request broadband services. And they do.

I agree with Carlos -- this is perfectly doable. And given a bit of communication with neighbours, the costs are feasible.

I’ll get back to you with more details when I have a bit more time.


With best regards,
Olav

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Updated statistics on Norwegian broadband
 

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Scratch that. Those are 2004 figures.

Just checked some government websites. Official Norwegian statistics show that broadband penetration was increased from 81% of all households in August 2004, to 91% in Agust 2005.

Within the end of 2006, the broadband infrastructure will cover 95% of Norwegian househoulds. :)


With best regards,
ArcticStones


PS. Bear in mind that the population density of Norway is 14/km2, compared to 30/km2 for the USA. Less than half. And some of the areas already served are pretty darned remote and sparsely populated. So if we can do it, I’m sure you can.

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Have you ever been to North or South Dakota???? :D

My 64th cousins in the boondocks
 

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Never had the pleasure, although I’m sure I have som 64th cousins there. :D

But I have been to Finnmark, Norway’s northernmost county. Rest assured that it is equally sparsely populated, and it is safe to say that many of our island villages and farms are, well, out in the boondocks.

My point is that you’re lagging far behind, and demographics ain’t the only reason for it.

Oh, sure, your broadband companies have had their hands full chasing easier profits (that only makes sense) -- but a whole lot of remote areas in the US can get broadband given local initiative. I mean, Carlos is satisfying some of them, as are other. There is no reason to wait for a big-shot CEO to take a likin’ to yer partic’lar spot on the map.

In the meantime, enjoy the stars. ;)
...But I would like to see Yellow being able to play World of Warcraft ’til 4am.

Cheers!

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Google map "Young, AZ." I brought high speed to the school there, and then the locals dial into the school or go use the high speed outright at the library. They didn't think they wanted to pay for Wi-fi. To get there I had to drive for two hours on a dirt road up the side of a mountain. If they can get a T1...

But you know, back to the original topic, some of the quotes in that article are pretty amusing. They would be scary if I didn't already know that those people are dinosaurs with one foot in a tar pit. These people head up technology companies but have no clue how any of it actually works. I remember a meeting a few years ago with the then-president of Lotus and I noted he had no computer in his office (which was approximately the size of my house). He said, "I don't need a computer, I have two secretaries."

Ignorance is bliss, isn't it???? There is seriously something wrong with the telecom industry, at least in my opinion.

That’s a lotta canyons ’n other nice stuff in the neighbourhood.

:)

I'm sure it's a beautiful place. I don't know, as all I could see was my life flashing before my eyes repeatedly. They didn't tell me I'd be driving up a muddy mountainside in snow. I was in a rented Pontiac four-door. At the end of the meeting they said, "You made it here...in THAT??" :D

The best figures I could find for Canada were: of the 86 percent of Canadian households that have access to broadband, 95 percent are in urban areas, while only 63 percent of rural households have access. I don't know the demographics of those figures. Quoting a population density for Canada doesn't make much sense either. Something like 80% of the population of Canada lives within 100 miles of the US border (see map). Nevertheless, my brother lives 10 miles outside a small town on the North shore of Nova Scotia, and he has a cable connection.