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Open Economies - The Corner Internet Network vs. the Cellular Giants [Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] The Corner Internet Network vs. the Cellular Giants
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/technology/04MESH.html Dear Open Economies members, There are two great articles on WIFI in this morning's New York Times. Both show how WIFI (or 80211) networks are spreading in the US, providing very inexpensive "last mile" access to the Internet. Carriers still provide the landline connections to the Internet itself, but even these connections could begin to go wireless as WIFI hubs start to be designed to communicate with each other, and to pass traffic one-to-another. All this has big implications for telecommunications in the developing world. Think a "perfect storm" of (1) very low, cost, mass-manufactured WIFI PC card and hubs--already available, (2) hubs spread around urban clusters in the developing world--including low-income settlements, (3) Voice-over-IP, so that voice calls could be made, and connected to landline and cellular networks through gateways. Think: A business model for a regional communications infrastructure that depends for most of its aggregate capital investment on individual interested end-users paying for low-priced PC cards. And that eliminates labor costs for conventional ordering, installation, maintenance, and service. Regards, Jim Moore Here is an excerpt from one of the two articles, this from our friend John Markoff: March 4, 2002 The Corner Internet Network vs. the Cellular Giants By JOHN MARKOFF AN FRANCISCO, March 3 - The informal Wi-Fi networks that inexpensively provide wireless Internet access are fine, as far as they go - which is generally a few hundred feet. But what happens when there are enough of them to weave together in a blanket of Internet coverage? What begins to appear is a high-speed wireless data network built from the bottom up, rather than the top-down wireless cellular data networks now being established by giant telecommunications companies. Many Silicon Valley engineers now believe that it will be possible to take the tens of thousands of inexpensive wireless network connections that are popping up in homes and coffee shops all over the country and lash them together into a single anarchic wireless network. Connections could theoretically be passed from one Wi- Fi node to another, similar to the way wireless phone signals pass from cell to cell, thereby significantly extending the wired Internet. Modeled closely on the original nature of the Internet, which grew by chaining together separate computer networks, the technology - known as wireless mesh routing - is being rapidly embraced in the United States as well as in the developing world, where it is viewed as a low-cost method for quickly building network infrastructure. [See above link for the rest of the article. Subscription to the NY Times is required if you don't go to the site today.] <<The Corner Internet Network vs. the Cellular Giants.url>> Attachment:
The Corner Internet Network vs. the Cellular Giants.url
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