SWG Tales

I figure we're all using it to view this forum and play the game we all love so much... I don't know, what do some of you think about this? Free net, of course, isn't free I wouldn't think as the article describes... but this sounds like another one of those 'wave of the future' ideas. Which will probably get cut short if they don't make enough money off of it...

Link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051016/ap_ ... n_the_farm

To me it is just asking for a hacker to plop down.

Theie are a lot more things to consider than security when planning a wireless network of this size. Believe me I know, because I tried to help a contractor do it. I was the federal frequency manager in PA for the PA national guard working on this issue in the Johnstown area. Now before I go too far I want to say this is the largest case of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse I have ever seen while working with the federal government. And its all because of congressman Murtha.... offtrack.

Setting this up in a fairly flat area would be simple. LOS signaling would be easy to comeby meaningg you would require less full blown sites. Wireless security aside (I personally don't believe its possible to have wireless and security) your real issues come with bandwidth usage. There are some unlicensed microwave systems you can employ but the chances that they will stay unlicensed is remote. Best example I have of that is anyone living near a military installation that Motorola has installed their base radio system in. I believe it runs somewhere in the 380-400mhz range. The signalling intereferes with garage door openers and car alarms. This has been a major issue in some areas. Now its not Motorola's fault. They were licensed to use these frequencies. Its the manufacturers of the other devices that are at fault.

Now flood 700 square miles with the 2.4ghz band. Will it cause an issue now? Maybe not. Look down the line ten years and see what it may hurt though. I know in order to flood the Johnstown, PA area it would take a considerable resource of towers, microwave shots, and various other things I don't even want to get into. Factor in the airport that they wanted to center this around and now you have a real mess. Rural Area Broadband initiatives may a nice ring to them. But am I the only one who sees an issue with the federal gov't becoming your ISP?

But am I the only one who sees an issue with the federal gov't becoming your ISP?

No, I wouldn't want a federal ISP, either. They do a decent enough job with the mail, but they're not getting access to my precious internets.