As an American please accept my apology. And, I say that knowing full well it will be American business interest that takes down the Internet as we know it.
As far as I am concerned, the only crooks bigger than government are the telecom companies.
I don’t know about other jurisdictions, but here, the main phone company charges a fee for having touch-tone service, and yet it’s the only service you can get for a home phone. How does that make sense?
I think with the advent of wireless ad hoc, the telecoms will die in the next 5-10 years,
and they will go down kicking and screaming, and try and pull as much $$$ out of the people as they can
before the people figure out that they are obsolete.
Be Free
Serval
Open Garden
B.a.t.m.a.n
Many more
Make them win!
I guess we’re lucky to have Cox Communications in our area, they seem to be among the better received cable companies around the US and they even upgrade their speeds on a yearly basis.
AT&T is also competing with them here, but they’re not received as well, my grandparents switched to them from Cox for a while and they had so much trouble with them that they recently switched back, but I realize that a lot of metro areas do not even have a choice between two providers and a good place to start would be to convince cities that they should welcome competing providers with open arms so they have two or more choices like we do here.
On the ad-hoc wireless mesh networks brought up by BPR, how would you get the server and bandwidth capacity to get blazing fast internet speeds with it, the cable providers at least have massive server farms that are designed to keep the internet going.
And even then, unless the whole world adopts it, you still need to get back onto traditional networks periodically. What stops them from blocking that traffic?
Wireless isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. You’re still at the mercy of interference, obstacles like tree lines and hills, even stormy weather knocks ours out from time to time. Unless you don’t mind seeing a 150ft tower every kilometer or so.
The answer - More nodes,
If I divide my communications into 30X .5 mbps that is 15 mbps…
So the more nodes, the better you can route, it’s like threading but low power, and everyones wifi card could have 3 sets of ram etc, possibly more then 1 band,
So each phone can be used as a phone, while streaming data for it’s neighbors, and maintaining the network,
there is a lot of work on this.
What I describe is a adhoc mesh network,
http://www.meshdynamics.com/military-mesh-networks.html?gclid=CIrwl_XpzroCFYZaMgodSC0ABQ
it is being done by many companies, and organisations,
Sounds like a good idea for places where large numbers of people are congregated, but what if you’re out in the middle of nowhere. And how would you connect two different continents without using the current infrastructure? It seems to me you would still be at the mercy of whoever owns the lines under the oceans, be it corporate, or government.
Oddly enough, this reminds me of the old FidoNET, when there was no “centralized internet,” and telecom companies momentarily had been driven away from their “you shall have one telephone and it shall be black” natural-mentalities.
When “they” insist that “it” absolutely cannot be done … that’s precisely the moment at which a(nother) revolution happens. 
We live in interesting times . . .
Ham radio links,
Laser line of site,
Satellite links,
I think the internet should be free, as a mandate by people,
along with education.
This is the beginning of dragging ourselves out of the muck,
when civilisation was a infant, it was brutal, grabbing what it could steal.
Now it’s like a moody toddler, you can have what I am not using, if I feel like it,
We need to progress to - We can all have everything, we just need to help each other.
There was a recent statement by a group known as internet.org where they proclaimed that internet connectivity is a basic human right. Then I ask myself, since when did it become an inalienable right to post on Facebook and watch cat videos on YouTube, when you start thrusting wants into the ream of basic rights, you end up opening a Pandora’s box of discussion of what luxuries (note, luxuries, not true needs like food and shelter) should be given to every man, women, and child on the planet on the backs of taxpayers.
Next thing you know, people will have basic rights to things like smartphones, culture in the form of playing movies via Blu-Ray disks and playing Angry Birds on a tablet, queen-sized beds, electronic timekeeping devices, you name it. Eventually it might be decided that hardworking citizens can no longer enjoy the fruits of their labors because all their money is needed to give these luxuries to third-world populations.
I give 1 inch
You throw 2 miles past.
Communication and education are the basis of social and technological evolution,
We need to grow, or we will die.
An issue that needs resolving for the past millennium and then some.
If we provide solutions that get accepted or buried.
Give it one millennium.
Get one second.
All we are seeing today is the gearing up phase from the US govt. No matter what form of internet we end up using it will be under the direct control of the US govt or it will be illegal. Any day now we will have persistant ID’s online. Oh and btw the US govt is just the administrative arm of corporations. None of us has a nation anymore. We are ruled by corporations with no national loyalties. In a few years there will be a few sites for each kind of service and no other options. Just like we see with video streaming and youtube. I know I know “what about Vimeo?” Vimeo gets 8% the traffic Youtube does, so I wouldn’t exactly call them competition. And who else can even think of another site that streams video on a large scale like those 2?
Social networking? Well you have facebook and twitter. Don’t like those? tuff because after netneutrality is done away with megacorps will make it impossible for any competition to exist. All bandwidth will be bought up by megacorps and it will become completely out of the reach of any but the wealthy to buy. Legislation will be passed that says alternative forms of the internet are breeding grounds for subversive terrorists and deviant pedophiles and they will be made illegal for the same reason Marijuana is illegal, it can’t be regulated or controlled. You wait and see. In the not too distant future operating a public server/network without a licence will be a crime.
I may sound like a paranoid nut job to most of you, but I started paying attention about 5 years ago and almost everything I’ve predicted has come true. We are all in the mist of the largest world war in human history and no one even knows its being fought.
My understanding of this. Right now blenderartist.org loads as quick as any other site given the traffic at any given moment. And, the site for General motors will not appear and open any faster then say your site of tutorials. Which in my mind is the way it should be. In other words it’s my understanding all sites are treated the same. Nor are any sites blocked with maybe the exception of child porn sites when they can or the open market sites for credit card numbers which is clearly illegal activity in almost any country. Now maybe this is a over simplification but basically I think that’s it.
The damn ISPs in America have looked at this and seen some money to be made by changing that entire premise. If only they could make the Internet a tier system in the way sites are treated. In their new world the General Motors site could open in the blink of a eye while blenderartist.org… Well, that is just my understanding of the nuts and bolts. I guess later they could take this tier concept right to the customer looking for even more profit. Would you like the premium package with access to the entire net. Once they do away with the open concept who knows where that ball will stop. I have no idea if they will be able to actually block sites. But, if you make a site slow enough to load you have essentially blocked it according to what web designers say. And, that would mean them and big money would be controlling the free exchange of ideas.
Now to my Texas forum buddy here. I’m seventy five and have seen a lot change in our country. So if I may venture a opinion here. Big business / Wall Street started becoming bigger then any government in the early eighties. And, as the price to mount a campaign for political office went up they simply became more powerful. Much more powerful. Add to that the thousands of lobbyist over on K Street and you no longer have a government for the people. When a individual who’s already in office has to beg fifty thousand dollars a week or much more depending on the state they’re from you know what the results will be. The people on the other end of the phone want something for that money.
Add to that a court decision that declares corporations people for contribution purposes and well you guessed it. The problem as I see it is simply the obscene amount of money needed to even run for office and stay there. Until that is addressed big money will continue to run the country lock, stock and barrel. Cap the amount of money that can be spent on TV, print ads and make the entire campaign period four weeks would change that according to many people.
Ur pretty much dead on, but its not about money really. It’s about power and control. Back in the early 1900’s in the US there were 100’s of car manufacturers. Now there are only 3. The same thing WILL happen to the internet. Right now you can search on any topic and bring back countless listings. Soon there will only be a select few sites for any given information or service. those that control those sites will ultimately control the internet. Look at Google. Almost all search engines use google’s listings or Yahoo. How would you find anything online without a search engine? It would be very hard. For all intentional purposes Google owns the internet. Almost all video is hosted on youtube. If it shutdown every other video hosting site on the web would crash from the traffic driven their way.
In a few years the internet will look like tv. there will be a site for DIY and a site for Video. There will be a site for social media and a site for porn. Now there may end up being 100’s of sites for each of these things, but all those sites will be owned by the same corporations. Only huge corporations like Google and Warner Brothers and such will be able to afford the cost of high speed bandwidth. Any other site that pops up will be like the days of 56k modem dialup. Until the site fails and disappears. No site will be able to profit from a website unless they are making billions.
I’m not sure what the name of such a system is oligarchy I believe, but this is the way all aspects of this world are heading. Hmm what’s for dinner? Well you have 5 or so restaurants and/or 5 or so grocery stores to choose from. And the masses will think it is great having never knows what true freedom feels like.
@Theoldghost I’m sorry I didn’t read all your post before responding to ur first points. You really have been paying attention. I don’t meet a lot of ppl from your generation and I highly value your perspective. Seems today that everyone is walking around in a fog refusing to pay attention to anything but the tv. And I think you are exactly right in your assessments of this country. Like I tell my sister about her kids, “Buy em every toy you can afford, so you can take em away one by one until they obey you” She won’t spank. That’s how politics are these days. These corporations drown politicians in money and power and dangle the threat of snatching it all away if their interests aren’t looked after. Everyone knows too that the more you make the more you spend. So these guys have built a life that costs 100’s of 1000’s a year to maintain. They aren’t willing to give that up. So they sail the ppl down the river and keep cashing their checks.
I think of the men who fought in Korea, Japan, Vietnam and wonder what they think of their sacrifices now. the US has become the very thing they fought against.
Anyway if you use facebook send me a friend request. www.facebook.com/brent.a.newton.77 But be warned I post a ton of political stuff on there. You may have to change what you see from me so every time you log it doesn’t look like ur part of Occupy Wallstreet. =) Anyone else who has interest in the topic of this thread is more than welcome to send me a friend request too. I accept them all if I think the person is real and not a bot.
Politics.
Closed.