On Sat, 30 Nov 2002, Dave Howe wrote:
> > http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/11/21/yourtech.wifis/index.html
> Its a nice idea, but unfortunately gets easily bitten by the usual
> networking bugbears
> 1. large wifi networks start to hit scaling problems - they start to need
> routers and name services that are relatively expensive, and ip address
> ranges start to become a scarce resource.
The scaling problem is a valid one up to a point. The others are not.
The biggest problem is people trying to do distributed computing using
non-distributed os'es (eg *nix clones and Microsloth).
There are other alternatives which are built from the ground up to be
distributed.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com
> 2. no matter how large the new network becomes, it still needs a link to the
> "old" network;
Granted, up to a point. That point is when this network has more resources
than the 'old' networks. At some point the old networks move over and
start running from the new one.
> almost all ISPs frown on use of home connections for sharing
> more than just the owner's machines, and many consider using even unmetered
> in a manner they didn't provision for (ie, using unmetered more than 100
> hours a month at the full bandwidth limit) as "abuse" and end the contracts
> of those who do so. what you would need would be an ISP (or large
> commercial) style contract with a guaranteeed bandwidth and dedicated ip
> addresses - which do not come cheap enough to be worth giving away.
Bullshit on the too expensive to give away.
> 3. unmetered is only just becoming common in england, and is still mostly on
> 56K modem. broadband is often *massively* underprovisioned, and quite often
> all the connections in an area feed to a single fixed-bandwidth multiplexor
> at the telecomms office, so adding additional connections doesn't actually
> add any bandwidth at all. the *only* end user deal is 500kb down, 250kb up
> shared amongst *50* people in your area (the uk has a telecomms monopoly
> from a recently privatised company that has already forced two would-be
> competitors out of the market). Even now (given expected usage patterns) the
> mere existance of a microsoft OS service pack more than 30mb in size is
> enough to throw available bandwidth per-user below modem levels
Irrelevant since there are plenty of commercial feeds out there that are
not ISP's.
I keep seeing thes ney saying views yet the guerrilla networks just keep
getting bigger...
--
We don't see things as they are, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
we see them as we are. www.ssz.com
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Anais Nin www.open-forge.org
