[Freedombox-discuss] Routing around nationwide and international Internet blocks

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Mon Feb 28 11:53:50 UTC 2011


On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 02:27:29PM -0800, Matt Joyce wrote:
> The only solution I can think of for this is a modular hardware design at
> the physical level that allows for pluggable communication devices.  Then

That's called GBit Ethernet. Some cheap switches even come with
literal SFP and SFP+ slots. It would be interesting to see whether
a couple of cheap aligned Newtons wouldn't cover a few 100 m, or so.

> allow individual groups to play with laser links, packet radio, gsm /

I only recently found out that Android smartphones are down to
about 100 EUR in Far East. Because of small size and power envelope
and ability to link up to 3G they can be rooftop-positioned in
weatherproof cases for maximum range, and powered by a small, 
cheap PV panel to last through the night.

It seems that the era of WiFi nodes as being default hackable platforms
is rapidly coming to a close.

> whatever in software defined radio.
> 
> The problem is mesh networking tends to not work well legally outside of
> 802.xx standards and 2.4 ghz.

I think our best hope is that next WiFi standards will move towards
realtime beamforming, boosting range while reducing local interferences.
 
> The plugs people have been discussing do not address these fundamental
> needs.  I think that many members of this group are not concerned with this
> feature set.

Plug computers are a nice focus, and also a point of departure.
The advantage of plugs is that they're easily placed, immobile, 
poweful, and offer both wired and wireless access. Smartphone-based
platforms are mobile, but power-limited, and hence cannot operate
24/7 unless they're dedicated immobile units, whether mains or
PV-powered -- notice that they come with their built-in UPS.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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