[Cu-wireless] Thinking ahead

[Ralph Johnson]

The CUGWIP home page has a paragraph about how a "random for profit ISP"
could get involved.  Are there any representatives of these organizations
who are involved?  If not, do you know people who work at one?

I imagine we all have different visions of the future of the CU wireless
system.  My vision is that anybody, in any part of town, could get a free
connection.  But connection to what?  A free connection to the internet
doesn't seem feasible.  If traffic starts to grow and the ISPs discover that
a large part of their traffic (i.e. costs) is due to freeloaders, they will
get upset and do something about it.  So, there will have to be other ways
of going to the internet besides using a piece of someone's cable modem.
The group could rent a T3 line, but that is expensive.  Who will pay for it?

My suggestion is that what people get for free is a connection to any place
in town.  You don't get a connection to the internet unless you make some
arrangements.  The ISPs will sell you a piece of their pipe for so much per
month.  Visitors could also buy a few days of access on their credit card or
by PayPal.  The ISPs will have antennas to tap into the community net, which
will also contribute to the infrastructure.  But they will be looking to
make money off of this, not thinking of it as just for the good of the
community.  

If this is true, we should get at least one ISP involved.  It would help the
network grow to have that kind of support.

On a related topic, the university should be involved.  They could put up a
few antennas, convince students to tap into the wireless net, and get rid of
a bunch of modems and phone lines.  They would NOT be expected to pass
packets to the internet, but they would be expected to pass packets from one
of their antennas to another.  In other words, the campus should be part of
the grid, not just make use of it.  I'm an university employee, so I am
probably a good person to look into this if nobody better is available.

-Ralph Johnson