Sam Varghese
Monday, 14 January 2008 21:34
Opinion and Analysis
Page 5 of 6
He says these co-ops worked well because the people who were connected by the network also appreciated that it was maintained as a shared project.
"Using the same limited consumer hardware and ISM band for paid service delivery would be a challenge because it would be difficult to guarantee quality of service with the noise of mobile phones, Bluetooth, microwave ovens, and low-power wireless transmission from many users on a limited range of Wifi channels (3). New technology like 802.11N is helping here, but the 2.4GHz ISM is very noisy nowadays. The 5GHz ISM bands are less utilised, but it's only a matter of time before consumer technology makes wider use of this band."
Hawtin says this kind of use of wireless could be more workable in rural/remote townships where there may be less noise or competing demands for those channels "but again the licensing is the defining factor at this time".
But then how many people have "spare capacity" given the exorbitant cost of internet access in Australia? He says most people use the internet in real time; i.e. as more services are becoming interactive, you need the internet online, now. "Fewer services are offline/batched/offpeak. Any service you can use in offpeak times will make good use of available connectivity.
"The main issue here is the unreasonably low monthly data volume cap. Some countries do not have data volume as a factor in internet provision costs. They will find it easier to share their connectivity than countries which have to measure individual use. So, I would be happy to share my internet connection with others, so long (as) the volume of their data wasn't too large. It's as much of a social problem to solve there as well as a technical one."
He says there are not-for-profit groups in Australia with limited membership that have access to a carrier licence or are covered by the vendor's carrier licence to do this and offer internet access. However, such groups are few and far between.
If such networks are to be realistically used to reduce the cost of internet access, there would need to be legislative changes to allow ISM bands to provide such services. There are other sections of the spectrum which are being used for internet provision and they are licensed differently.
"The community ISM band does provide interesting services to its community users at this point in time and some might say that connecting to the internet is not the only goal in town. The primary value for community members in Air-Stream is their connection to each other. The focus is different," Hawtin says.
"There is an appreciation of the value of local content and connecting people with sites in a local area. It would be great to be able to expand on this kind of use for community wireless because it provides connectivity which is effective in sharing local resources. In country England there is a network which connected a church with a retirement village and a school. This made it possible for the school to share video of the sports days and theatre events with the retirement village with no ongoing costs. Their aim is to build on the community awareness and create as much content as they can that is relevant to local community."
