] Brewster Kahle wants to network San Francisco. All of it.

I've never actually met Kahle, but as time rolls on, he is becoming a personal hero of mine. History will see this man as an important visionary..

] It sounds like every broadband Internet service
] provider's fantasy, but it's maybe not as far-fetched as
] it seems. Over the last year or so, small, gray plastic
] boxes have begun appearing atop homes and businesses
] around San Francisco. Roof by roof, they're bringing
] Kahle's vision of ubiquitous wireless-network access
] closer to reality -- no telephone companies or cable
] providers required.

I wound up at two parties last night.. At the first one, I found myself in an interesting conversation with a guy named Bill who worked for the phone company.

We talked about asymmetric versus symmetric Internet connections for the home. We talked about the differences between centralized and decentralized systems. We talked about telecom law. We talked about natural monopolies. We talked about market conditions. Market conditions..

When has the phone company every really understood market conditions in reference to the Internet? Not that often. I think I really pissed the guy off, he just kinda got up and left after suggesting I find the bottle of wine.. I had to leave shortly after finding the wine.

Good conversation though.. I Hope I run into him again.

] "If I have data or resources in my house and somebody
] lives 50 feet away from me in their house and wants to
] be able to share data back and forth, it seems pretty silly
] that we both have to pay $50 a month for a DSL connection
] to be able to do that," says Pozar. "We should just be able
] to throw this virtual wire over our fence and be able to
] send data back and forth."

That's a market condition, right? At the very least, Open Spectrum and the ability to use it cheaply, is going to create a market condition or five. I'm not even going to try to claim I understand the ramifications of it all.. I hope the phone & cable companies don't either.

] As to the future, "we would just like to see this type of
] idea and technology copied, and matured, by many others,"
] says Kahle. "We don't see it as a large, centralized system.
] It's an idea toward making community networks operate
] at very high speeds that have distributed ownership. We'd
] just basically like to see bandwidth spread like a virus ... so
] it just builds on itself."

I've been thinking about Amateur Radio lately.

I never actually got my Ham license.. I learned (and since forgot) morse code, I was on the standard track to a novice license. At one point my father had a general license. As I understand it, that kept him out of Vietnam and in front of a radio in Gemany.. My father clearly saw value in that skill set, and was sure I had the ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]