Tag Archives: Decentralization

Ad-hoc internet infrastructures

CC image from sarnil on flickr

CC image from sarnil on flickr

In this week’s City Paper, Lydia DePillis has a story about an ad-hoc wireless broadband internet network that emerged out of community discussions in DC’s Bloomingdale neighborhood.

Finally, the group gave up on city assistance, turning to a local IT company that could get them a commercial broadband subscription. They set up “gateway” routers at Big Bear and in Rustik Tavern and then started knocking on doors to ask whether homeowners wouldn’t mind hosting a free “repeater.” For a few hundred dollars in hardware and about $800 a year for broadband, a six-block long stretch of houses now has WiFi access—for much less than the cost of individually subscribing each area household to Verizon or Comcast.

For Youngblood, wiring the neighborhood is worth it because of what he can then build on top: Through his company, Youngblood Capital Group, he hopes to develop a “smart grid” in the area that could support things like solar energy systems. “You build the network, and then you’ve got this fertile field you can grow everything in,” he says.

The application on a neighborhood basis is interesting.  I can speak to plenty of anecdotal accounts of similar networks on a smaller, apartment building basis where neighbors will chip in for one internet connection and share it via a wireless router – or even less formal ones where dwellers simply ‘steal’ wireless from unencrypted networks within range.

Lydia’s follow-up blog post addresses some of the competitive concerns that the to-the-curb providers might have:

But community wireless projects in America haven’t taken off to the same extent as they have in Europe, in part because of pushback from the big carriers. (Although, as Youngblood pointed out, resistance is sort of silly: Expanding wireless to underserved areas is a good thing for cable companies, since some new users will inevitably want the stronger connection they can only get from “fiber to the curb.” In that way, free or low-cost wireless is like a gateway drug. “We get people addicted,” as he puts it. “If you want the strong stuff, go get it from the man.”)

The decentralization (and democratization) of these kinds of infrastructures is an intriguing prospect.

Links – Stimulus Package

Paul Krugman takes note of Joe Biden’s recently souring perceptions of the economy, as well as the fact that it appears another stimulus package would be a nice boost right about now:

But never mind the hoocoodanodes and ayatollahyaseaux. What’s important now is that we don’t compound the understimulus mistake by adopting what Biden seems to be proposing — namely, a wait and see approach. Fiscal stimulus takes time. If we wait to see whether round one did the trick, round two won’t have much chance of doing a lot of good before late 2010 or beyond.

So, we have to spend money right now.  Hmmmmm.  If only we had something in this country that needed lots and lots of money…

There’s a power drain out there at the NSA.  Apparently those code-breaking supercomputers require a whole lot of juice.  Aside from the security reasons for decentralizing operations like this (which is certainly not a new idea amongst the Feds), it’s an interesting idea to think about the consequences of decentralizing more ‘abstract’ facilities like data centers while still opening the door for centralization of personnel and employment.

They put a price on congestion in New York.  Charles Kamonoff pegs it at $160 per trip.  Felix Salmon’s early conclusion:

Komanoff’s still working on this spreadsheet, but tHe main message is pretty clear — that smart congestion charging would be great news for New York, and probably for most other dense cities as well.

AC chimes in as well:

The basic point is sound:  we severely underestimate how many people we delay when we enter a congested network of roads.  If you’ve ever tried to make the trip crosstown Manhattan in the middle of the day, you understand just how much delay one driver can cause.

Komanoff recommends congestion pricing.  A good idea.  But he also proposes making buses free, which is a bad idea (and one floated in Austin occasionally).

I tend to agree that completely free transit is a bad idea.  We have congestion on our system in DC as it is at the peak hours.  There’s something to be said for the psychology behind charging a nominal fee for a service.