[wplug] The End of the Telcos?

[Drew from Zhrodague]

> It appears that theirs is a municipal rollout, while I was referring to a 
> totally private rollout, since I believe that would best serve the 
> individuals who would buy in to the network.
>
> In any case, what do all of you on the mailing list think about this, and 
> other ideas like it?  Is anyone around PGH doing something like this?

 	*yawn*

 	There was the Pittsburgh Freenet a while back, the Bandwidth 
Collective (which I lit-up), a bunch of stalled wifi projects including my 
Pittsburgh Wireless Community. I am sure there are many others.

 	No matter how you slice it, building a network between buildings 
is very expensive. Lots of technology may fill in the pieces, WiFi, dark 
fiber, line-of-sight-optics -- are getting much cheaper. I see the issue 
like the Oil issue, where we have to turn to a variety of technologies to 
get our selves away from using Oil. In this case, of course, it ends-up 
being our only two telecommunications companies (Verizon, Comcast).

 	WiFi is definitely not the answer, as it doesn't quite fit the 
requirements properly. It can be cobbled together to work, as many have 
already done. I think we need a full-on multi-modal method of 
communication which doesn't exist as a turnkey system. Again, it can be 
cobbled together to work, and that could be better than what we have now 
(which is Verizon/Comcast/Nothing).

 	I have been unsuccessful in building out a network like this on my 
own. Couple of us have been. I'd like to see more interconnecting between 
us all, and would like to chat with whomever is interested.

-- 

Drew from Zhrodague		http://www.WiFiMaps.com
drew at zhrodague.net		http://www.pghwireless.net
 				http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotpgh