[*] isen.blog: Broadband without Internet ain't worth squat

[John Lange]

On Wed, 2009-05-06 at 17:18 -0500, Tom Poe wrote:
> John:  Interesting points.  On the matter of the $50 per house model, I 
> mentioned it as an example of how low-cost a decentralized approach is, 
> today.  There is good reason this model isn't widely adopted.  My 
> personal experience was just a few months ago, when I approached mayor 
> Jim Erbs, mayor of Charles City, Iowa, where I live.  I proposed a 
> community initiative that would use a local broadband infrastructure 
> based on open-mesh.com technology.  The proposal identified a need to 
> have every child be able to connect to the local school network from 
> their homes to gain a true 21st century education.  I received a letter 
> from our mayor, indicating the city would not support such an 
> initiative.

Uh? If your proposal is for a truly decentralized mesh network, then why
are you asking for someone to centrally approve, fund or manage it?

A truly decentralized mesh network wouldn't need anything from anyone.
All it requires is a community of users to setup the devices and "mesh"
together.

>   I pushed back, and was told that the executives at Qwest, 
> our regional telephone provider, would not permit it to happen.

Again, if it was a truly decentralized mesh network then there wouldn't
be anything they could do to stop it nor could there possibly be
anything illegal about it.

My understanding is that providers in the US have objected to
municipalities spending money to setup public internet access that
competes with their services.

If each user is spending their own money and you're not asking for tax
dollars, there is nothing they can object to.

Regards,
-- 
John Lange
http://www.johnlange.ca