[Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox Testing 2012.0617 Image Published

[Jonathan Wilkes]

----- Original Message -----

> From: John Gilmore <gnu at toad.com>
> To: Rick C. Hodgin <foxmuldrster at yahoo.com>
> Cc: freedombox-discuss at lists.alioth.debian.org
> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 9:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox Testing 2012.0617 Image Published
> 
>>  This is the path I'd like to explore for developing Freedombox tools -- 
> the ability to communicate off the grid using point-to-point with routing beyond 
> to some remote 3rd party.
>> 
>>  Are there WiMAX add-on boards which do the same (for longer distances)?
> 
> I strongly suggest using *wires* rather than wireless, whenever possible.
> 
> You can trivially push a gigabit of traffic through an Ethernet cable
> that can stretch from one apartment to another, or from one house to
> another along a fence.  And this gigabit won't conflict or compete with
> any other traffic you're handling to other neighbors, nor compete with
> wireless nodes.
> 
> With a couple of readily available converter boxes, you can plug that
> gigabit Ethernet into a fiber that can go to a destination up to 80km
> away.
> 
> WiFi is sexy, but Ethernet (and Ethernet running over fibers) is what
> runs most real dependable Internet services worldwide.  If you share
> your Internet connection with your closest neighbor over Ethernet, via
> a FreedomBox, you'll unclog your wireless spectrum, and improve the
> reliability and privacy of both of your Internet connections.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but until you hit a certain threshold in terms of
# of users and geographical variety, you'd be improving reliability at the
expense of privacy.  Also, the lack of choice of ISP in many areas 
may make the reliability increase insignificant, as an upstream outage
would most likely affect all the neighbors, too.

On the other hand, it would be quite interesting to see what a dorm full
of college students would do with a pile of Freedomboxes and a
spindle of ethernet cable.

> 
>     John
> 
> PS:  Wires and fibers are much harder to wiretap than radio signals.
> 
> 
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