The Little Engine That Could (PBS) [LWN.net]

Robert X. Cringely proclaims the virtues of Linux as found in the Linksys WRT54G router. "...the WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware is all you need to become your cul de sac's wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured WRT54Gs, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company. That's what I mean by a disruptive technology."

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One Great Article!

Posted May 28, 2004 21:41 UTC (Fri) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link]

I just finished a BattleMech book where a wireless net was utilized in the story line. This idea could create a saturated web effect with unlimited redundancy. Geez the possiblities!

I suggest you read the article, even if you don't understand it. The structure of the sentences was very compact delivering a huge amount of info in a small space.

One day all of us will be familiar with at least one of the technologies mentioned and you'll remember the article and have a clearer understanding. Wow!

Radio communication isn't that simple

Posted May 28, 2004 23:16 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

setting up a redundant radio-based network is HARD to do right. it's easy to do something that works under low load conditions where there are only a few stations, but when you start talking about lots of different stations (be they access points or computers doing the accessing) there are a lot of new problems that you start noticing.

802.11 and it's varients have done a great job of dealing with many of these issues transparently for the users, but if you try to pack more in an area and have them all relaying for each other you really need a WHOLE lot more then the three useable channels that are currently available.

I'm not saying it can't be done with sufficiant resources thrown at it, but I am saying that one of the resources it requires is more radio bandwidth