<story><title>Why we need an Open Wireless movement</title><url>http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/04/open-wireless-movement</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>Sigh.&lt;p&gt;How about this idea, we create device that can send digital data by modulating and demodulating sounds which can be sent from one computer to another. Then we&apos;ll invent a store and forward protocol where you could type in a message on a local computer, and that message would then move between you and its recipient through a series of jumps we will call &quot;hops.&quot; [you know, like its hopping from computer to computer]. You could send a message from anywhere to anywhere else just by putting in the places it had to go between here and there. We could even create a system where by we can create a category or subject area and messages can be sent to everyone who wants to read them on those messages. The coolest thing is that because its just computer to computer there is no evil mastermind in the middle pulling the strings and we&apos;ll have the source code to everything so that anyone can become part of the network. It will be a network for the users and we&apos;ll call it User Network, no that doesn&apos;t sound quite right, I&apos;ve got it &lt;i&gt;Usenet&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Silly history lesson aside, connections aren&apos;t &quot;free&quot; and the people who pay the bills set the rules, if you don&apos;t like the rules pay for your own network. You can argue the prices are fixed or too high. Fine. You can get a USB Softradio and the Gnu Radio stack and create your own white space wireless.&lt;p&gt;But moaning about the fact that no one is willing to give you &quot;the nice one&quot; free access to their network becasue they can&apos;t also prevent &quot;the bad one&quot; from getting access is a phenomenal waste of time.&lt;p&gt;We can probably have &apos;free&apos; wireless for anyone as long as everyone got their own IP address. There is a proposal floating around where the US Government would install wired and wireless networks everywhere like the interstate highway system, and then individuals would apply for their own block of IP:V6 address space. In that world everything you owned would then &apos;DHCP&apos; off your personal address space. And every packet you sent would be tracable right back to you. Last I heard both the MPAA and RIAA thought this was a great idea of tax payer funded network so that everyone, rich or poor, had equal access to a quality internet experience.&lt;p&gt;Its not free. It never has been.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why we need an Open Wireless movement</title><url>http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/04/open-wireless-movement</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>slug</author><text>Isn&apos;t this what fonera was(is) trying to achieve for some years now? &lt;a href=&quot;http://corp.fon.com/us/this-is-fon/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://corp.fon.com/us/this-is-fon/&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;p&gt;Anyway, in my home country (europe), with a fiber optic connection plan (80ch tv+net+phone) for about 40€/month you also get 3G connectivity included. In the US I pay ~$35 for 10Mbps rcn internet only.&lt;p&gt;I used to have my european wifi router open but since everyone in the neighborhood has wifi and the really cheap 3g connectivity is ubiquitous, I ended up setting up wpa.</text></comment>