Future Hi: The Internet is Dead: Long Live the Internet!

Future Hi: The Internet is Dead: Long Live the Internet!:

"...there are many things that will never allow this draconian, dark age future to come to pass. The first is the nature of capital itself which will continue to reward ANYONE who trys to create something better. If the telco's want to lock it down, first hundreds, then thousands of smaller companies will come into play to make a new internet, Google has already bought up thousands of miles of 'dark fiber' for reasons unknown. But if their recent actions are any indication, they could very well be positioning themselves to become the savior of the US internet in the advent of a telco lockdown. They are already offering free Wi-fi in several places. Unfortunately Google has already used their muscle power in equally un-free-market ways. For example, they had the city of Mountain View give them a monopoly on free wi-fi access. Totally bullshit, but that's the story. But alas, that brings us to another more promising possibility:

xMax technology can change everything all over again. It gives the power of the network to everyone. It will allow anyone with $100 to set up their own very long range (up to 20 miles) wireless ISP. And because the power is so low, it falls outside the range of FCC regulation. Of course, they could try to regulate it, but then they open up a pandora's box of major public backlashes, not to mention that to regulate low power wireless like xMax, means that now wireless airplanes, remote controls, and garage doors now fall into this regulatory scheme as well. Not to mention the already pervasive wi-fi that is already out there.

With a technology like xMax saturating the marketplace, you're looking at the ability of every computer becoming a node on the network. This type of network is also know as a mesh-network. With every computer equipped with one of these xMax transcievers, what are the telco's going to do? At this point, it will become completely obvious, even to your average consumer just how unfriendly and downright customer hostile the telco's are. Who needs cell phones, cable TV and commercial Clear Channel radio, when everyone can download, transmit and communicate anyway they want, whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want from small, cheap and out of control, very powerful, long range xMax-like devices?"