Re: RANT: wiring up the neighbourhood

Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:21:23 +0000


On Sun, 13 Jul 1997, Eugene Leitl wrote:

> The
> system must come in a rugged, atmosphere-proof case, large
> enough to contain a buffering battery (in case the system is
> powered by a solar cell, crucial for a standalone relais).

I've heard of a company in Australia making solar-powered Internet routers
with 400kbps spread-spectrum radio links; at one stage there was a plan to
use them to provide Net access in Bosnia, and they were talking about
upgrades to T1 and above. I don't know what happened to them, but a Web
search might find something.

> routing and switching. Boxes, knowing their spatial address
> (from GPS, and/ultrasonic, or vis LPS), can select the nearest
> one.

I don't see the advantage of this; why should the boxes know my spatial
location rather than where I'm connected to? Otherwise when I move I'll
have to update my address all the time. It would presumably work OK for
fixed sites, but be really bad for mobile users.

Mark

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