Here's a half baked idea. I think a free internet solution would be absolutely fantastic. But it would be so hard to accomplish without a large group of people actively working on it, which would cost money.
The idea would be to use a RONJA like FSO system to setup point to point links across the country, in order to setup a separate backbone on which to transmit data. Again, it's a far fetched idea, but it could be done.
What about a HAM radio type of internet? Aren't HAM radio signals sent for free all across the world? Why can't they do that with text and images?
Signals "frequencies" are controled by governments which are controled by big money that profits from the control of frequencies.
@ Mike444, What about a Ham Radio type of internet? Aren't Ham radio signals sent for free all across the world? Why can't they do that with text and images?
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There isn't enough Bandwidth on the Ham Bands. For example, ONE REGULAR TV Channel occupies 6 MHZ. But on the 80 Meter Ham Band, there is only .5 MHZ between 3.5 MHZ & 4 Mhz. Same with the 40 Meter Ham Band, there is only .3 MHZ between 7.0 MHZ & 7.3 MHZ.
That's why historically Hams always used Morse Code & Voice because there really isn't enough Bandwidth to do much of anything else.
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@ Fatbird
Sure about that?
As i read in wikipedia it looks like they pioneerd the data transmissions:
Modern personal computers have encouraged the use of digital modes such as radioteletype (RTTY), which previously required cumbersome mechanical equipment.[11] Hams led the development of packet radio in the 1970s, which has employed protocols such as TCP/IP since the 1980s. Specialized digital modes such as PSK31 allow real-time, low-power communications on the shortwave bands. Echolink using Voice over IP technology has enabled amateurs to communicate through local Internet-connected repeaters and radio nodes,[12] while IRLP has allowed the linking of repeaters to provide greater coverage area. Automatic link establishment (ALE) has enabled continuous amateur radio networks to operate on the high frequency bands with global coverage. Other modes, such as FSK441 using software such as WSJT, are used for weak signal modes including meteor scatter and moonbounce communications.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio
Quote from: FatBird on May 30, 2010, 05:03:37 PM
There isn't enough Bandwidth on the Ham Bands. For example, ONE REGULAR TV Channel occupies 6 MHZ. But on the 80 Meter Ham Band, there is only .5 MHZ between 3.5 MHZ & 4 Mhz. Same with the 40 Meter Ham Band, there is only .3 MHZ between 7.0 MHZ & 7.3 MHZ.
That's why historically Hams always used Morse Code & Voice because there really isn't enough Bandwidth to do much of anything else.
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why wouldn't there be enough bandwidth for data (0 and 1s) when there is enough bandwidth for analog waves (voice)? Also I used to work for a wireless internet provider working with 900mhz equipment, the channel width for that equipment was 8mhz(motorola canopy 900) and we were running 75-100 users per access point at 3mbps each, so I do not think that channel width would be the problem, I could be missing something but..